


The Road

by RurouniHime



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Battlefield, Blood Magic, Bonding, Character Death, Dark Magic, Death Eaters, Deathly Hallows Spoilers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Heavy Angst, Love, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Old Magic, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Half-Blood Prince, Series Spoilers, Stone Circle, Violence, War Era, no seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:56:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 83,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of a disintegrating war, Harry awaits the arrival of the Order's last hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue // Saving Mrs Potter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyone/gifts).



> I sincerely recommend you read these notes before starting, because the story behind this fic is probably about as long as the fic itself. 
> 
> ~~~
> 
>  **1\. I started this epic in 2007.** Yes, you read that right: 2007. And I always knew it was going to be an epic. What I didn't count on was the fact that it spanned nine years of writing, three years of which heralded a nasty bout with clinical depression (not related to the story, no worries, I didn't screw my own head up with this thing, but it did bring the writing to a staggering halt in short, sudden order and kept it that way for a long time) and the latter half of which has been confuddled by my entrance into seven additional fandoms. Yes, I write a lot.
> 
>  **2\. This version going up on AO3 is 'remastered', shall we say?** By that, I mean that it has undergone edits. Not for content or plot, but to pull the writing in closer to my current standard, which has changed in the intervening years. There have been significant cuts in terms of phrasing and word usage, but I have tried to keep the story itself true to what was originally posted at heart. Thus, any discrepancies can be blamed on the NINE YEAR INTERVAL, holy shit, nine years?? Holy _shit._ Maybe the more I write it, the more it will make sense to me.
> 
>  **3\. When Deathly Hallows was published, I discovered that there were DH spoilers in this story from the beginning.** Which makes me ecstatic, you have no idea. Obviously JKR had her act together, because I picked up on something crucial enough that it found its way into this fic before I knew it existed in canon. So. If you don't know how Harry Potter ends, beware of DH spoilers, even though this fic doesn't technically include the entirety of DH as canon.
> 
>  **4\. Original artwork has been linked where possible.** Some beautiful, patient, and amazing people did artwork for this story as it crawled along, and I will be linking each piece as it comes up so that you can see the wonder, too.
> 
>  **5\. My betas are my life.** dacro, coffeejunkii, fireelemental79, luciology, and especially viridescence, who slogged through chapter after chapter and poked me and waited patiently for me to get my act together. All of you, I cannot thank you enough.
> 
>  **6\. H/D has the most LOYAL readers in all of fandom.** Seriously, these people are STILL following this fic. If you look at the original posting dates on LJ, your jaw will drop all the harder when you imagine the patience and dedication that went into being a reader of this saga. I'll be noting the original post date of each chapter as I put it up, so _please_ heed the timeframe don't get on my case for writing weirdness. I know it's weird. I know there will probably be some head-scratching. Screw it, I didn't want to fuck up my story by trying a major overhaul, and trust me, you don't want me taking any more time with this Thing than the ungodly amount I already have.
> 
>  **7\. This time around, I have made a Road Playlist.** Every song that occurs within the story is included on this playlist, in order. You can find the playlist [**here**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTa8NA7Ei84&list=PLbTDOH2zFVElVpcLrDknEPbn87xfN1h-r).
> 
> ...and finally...
> 
>  **8\. This fic is not yet finished.** I KNOW. STILL. But I have posted two chapters already this year with the next one nearly done, and it is my goal to put a cap on it by the end of 2016. There are 31 chapters already up, and I estimate about 5 to 6 more in total. Most of the end is already written, but in pieces. It's a matter of squirreling everything into its proper place and making it acceptable for public consumption.
> 
> So, without further ado, I present to you my saga, my baby, my Godzilla epic...
> 
>  **The Road**.

**originally posted 1/23/07**

 

**Prologue**

 

On 17 December, 1998, a solution preventing the inevitable defeat of the Order of the Phoenix and the existing Wizarding government was at last discovered: a binding spell, ancient, unpredictable, to be performed on the most powerful wizard or witch with the ability to defeat Thomas Marvolo Riddle. It was a spell designed to bind two people together in love, creating enough magic channeled through the chosen vessels to destroy the Dark Lord once and for all. There was no possibility of concealing the spell’s discovery from Riddle’s followers; the infiltration of spies into either side had been an inescapable fact for months. The Order could only do everything in its power to keep the chosen couple safe long enough for the binding to be properly crafted. As the time drew near, the Death Eaters tore the country apart searching for the one who would be bound to the Boy Who Lived, and the one chosen to guide her to his side.

...  
...  
...

 

**Chapter 1: Saving Mrs Potter**

 

Ginny saw it keenly: Malfoy was not looking at her as he reached back, but his fingers skimmed over her shoulder as if he were watching. His eyes narrowed on the thick trees in front of them. 

“This way.”

Ginny moved with Malfoy, falling into the space just behind him. If he had been casting a shadow, she would have been in it.

Thunder rumbled overhead. She spared one glance at the sky, its beige cover of clouds strangely alight. But it was only a glance and she turned back to the uneven ground in front of her. It was a wistful urge of her childhood, an impossible desire to see the sound of thunder. Ginny brushed it aside and it left her to the stark reality of the present. She did not look for thunder here. In the here and now, Ginevra Weasley knew there was nothing to see. 

The trees hid each other, thin trunks fading into a kaleidoscope of shadow that made her eyes hurt. Depth perception meant nothing to her in this forest, and she wondered how her guide could see clearly enough to move so fast. Malfoy’s hand had long left her shoulder; he focussed straight ahead. It was a compliment most would have missed, but Ginny refused to be one of them. She’d been pulled along before, pushed by frantic hands. Led as though on a leash. Malfoy did none of these things. He spoke, then acted, and did not look back.

A flicker of light brighter and quicker than thought illuminated Malfoy’s hair under his hood, followed closely by a growl of thunder. Ginny risked a look behind her into the forest. Fog had crept in around the tree trunks. She slowed. Something fluttered in the darkness between the trees. Her eyes, or…

A hand clasped her forearm. Ginny jerked up to find Malfoy’s gaze trained over her head. The intensity in his face caught her, and her heart gave a soft thud. She squinted into the gloom. 

“Close.” Just a whisper, barely audible. Malfoy’s hand moved in the corner of her eye and she saw the flash of obsidian against his palm.

He spoke again, eyes still fixed on what could have been a trick of light. His tone was both calm and weighted. “Move.”

She did.

~

_Three days ago_

Seamus handed her cloak to her, watching her with eyes she didn’t quite want to memorise. It felt so final: the smattering of freckles that belied his adulthood, the curious asymmetry of his smile. And Blaise Zabini’s dark eyes and sloping brows, the curl of his hair. He was perched on the arm of the couch beside them, Ginny’s new wand held between two fingers over his knee, and Ginny didn’t want to remember any of it because that felt like asking not to see it again. She pulled the cloak on, then shrugged the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and looked at the floor while she finished with the clasp.

“We can’t think of another person we’d feel safe sending you with,” Seamus said.

Blaise met her eyes. Ginny nodded, then dropped her gaze to her travelling shoes. She heard Blaise rise and approach, heard Seamus sigh, and suddenly she _did_ want to remember this, if she took nothing else with her. She raised her eyes, mouth dry. 

Blaise’s arm had circled Seamus’ waist. He stood close behind his partner, chin on Seamus’ shoulder. Seamus’ fingers found their way over Blaise’s wrist and linked their hands. A troubled expression passed over Seamus’ face.

Blaise reached out and tugged Ginny’s cloak gently, but it was Seamus who spoke. “Gin, be careful what you say about… Remember, it’s still Malfoy.”

Ginny nodded, clasped Blaise’s hand briefly. “I know. I know.”

There was a creak behind her and Blaise pulled away from Seamus with a soft curse. Seamus sighed. The light left his eyes. Ginny took a breath and turned around. 

Later she would recall how out of place Malfoy looked in the warmth of the candlelight, the sodden black cloak lending another tall shadow to the space by the door, the hood obscuring half of the face that would lead her from this house. Blaise clasped Malfoy’s arm, whispered something Ginny could not hear, and one pale hand lifted to pull back the hood. Ginny stared into grey eyes, realising at last how long it had been since she’d seen Draco Malfoy. What she recognised was not the sharp features or flaxen hair, but rather the age that bent his appearance. It was the same age that wrinkled Seamus’ brow and flattened Blaise’s eyes. The same age in Hermione Granger’s voice when Ginny had last seen her.

Standing there in her travelling cloak, her future laid out at her feet, Ginny wondered how old she looked to the rest of them. 

Malfoy inclined his head. “Weasley.”

“Malfoy,” she returned. Seamus squeezed her shoulders once and released her. 

“It’s time,” he said in a low voice. Ginny spun and flung an arm around him, and after a moment’s surprise, he hugged her tightly enough to frighten her. 

“Give Harry and Luna my best,” he whispered. When they pulled apart, he stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. Ginny turned away. Malfoy’s gaze was on her as she approached, leaving her face only when Blaise embraced him in farewell. It was the first emotion she saw cross those stark features, and it was gone as soon as Blaise released him. 

Blaise’s arms around her afterward were steady, the hand that smoothed her cloak more sure than his jumping pulse led her to believe. He quirked a smile at her. Like all of his expressions, it was laced with sadness. She gripped his hand, then followed Malfoy out the door. 

Glancing back, she saw the gulf between Seamus and Blaise. The light streaming through the door between their two forms felt heavy. They would stand apart in deference to Malfoy until the door shut them from her sight. Ginny found herself wishing to see what happened once the wards rose behind her: Seamus would reach out and Blaise’s eyes would at last uncloud, _oh gods, at last, please,_ and their final night together for however long the fates decreed would begin. 

Malfoy walked beside her, profile sharp against the darkness. Ginny studied the stoniness of his features and considered how they might have come to life under other circumstances. Theodore Nott’s face flickered through her mind, pale and unfathomable. His image burned starkly for an instant before fading. 

She wondered if Malfoy’s features _could_ come back to life anymore.

 

* * *

“My love said to me, my mother won’t mind…”

The rain hammered against the wards over the windows, springing away in tiny spatters. The sky outside was the colour of soot.

“And me father won’t slight you for your lack of kind…”

Harry laid his palm flat against the window, letting the cold spill into his skin. The wind blew the grass to tatters far below. Trees whipped. It was odd to think that the glass pane was dry outside, and the rain hissed over it, a breath away.

“Then she stepped away from me, and this she did say…”

Harp notes floated, delicate. 

“It will not be long, love…”

Harry closed his eyes and mouthed the next words. “Till our wedding day.”

He turned down the long hallway, and the voice rang above, echoing off thick stones and arches in bell tones. So fragile. He could almost hear the person behind it, a shadow very familiar to him but with the untouchable grace of enchantment. 

Wordless improvisation now, and the pluck of strings. Harry opened the door at the end of the hall.

Luna sat in a gilt chair in the middle of the room, her feet drawn beneath her. Her face glowed in the light from the huge hearth in the far wall. Harry shut the door behind him and let the heat comfort. Luna’s voice flowed over him like silk.

“She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair…” 

Luna saw him and smiled. One hand fingered the strings of the ornate harp before her. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, cream against the green embroidery of her robe. She looked like a fire fairy, glowing orange, eyes bright as topaz. Harry stepped across the room amidst a roll of notes. Luna broke the statuesque serenity of her posture and nudged a cushion toward him from under her chair. Her hands never left the instrument. Harry lowered himself down beside her.

“How are you, Luna?”

She opened her mouth and sang, “And fondly I watched her…” and at the same moment, her voice sounded in Harry’s head.

_It’s raining out, isn’t it?_

“Storming, actually.”

Luna nodded, and filled the room with the next verse. She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. _I would have liked to see that, I think._

“It’s a sight,” Harry allowed. He listened to the gentle melody Luna fell into. If it had a colour, it would be the gold of poppies under a setting sun. “You sound beautiful today.”

Luna plucked the harp with callused fingers. _I should think everyone would want to sing in an empty castle. If I listen long enough I can hear my words coming back seconds after I sing them._

“Has Dumbledore been in to see you?”

“She went her way homeward with one star awake…” _He comes every day. Through that wall, there. Today he brought a fiddle._

“I’d wondered who that was. Thought it was you.”

 _He brought Ice Mice as well. A pity we can’t eat them. I’ve appealed to the house-elves for real ones._ Luna’s face was bright despite her hollowed eyes. She lifted a hand from the harp and reached into the folds of her robes, pulling two of the candies from it. Harry took one; the other went into Luna’s mouth. She sucked on it, humming.

“I brought something for you, too,” Harry said after a moment.

Luna cocked her head, strumming the harp in a flurry. There was expectancy in her eyes. Harry barely pulled himself out of it in time. Still, his chest twinged. He busied himself with the voluminous pockets of his outer robe. 

_I don’t remember you much liking robes._

“It’s worth it. Castle’s cold. And let’s face it, I’ve learned not to trip over the ends of my robes anymore.”

Luna’s laugh echoed in his head as well as in the joy of her song. 

“As the swans in the evening moved over the lake…”

“Here it is.” Harry extricated the flute from his pocket and held it up for Luna to see. Her eyes widened. She leaned forward, strumming, and her hair cascaded over her lap. 

_That’s a magical flute, that is. My mother had one and she played it for me when I went to sleep at night. I was five and three quarters. She sang like…like she had one ear to the wind._

Harry smiled. “Not nearly as prettily as you, I wager.”

Luna reached out and stroked heated fingers down Harry’s cheek. Her skin was rough, chapped. And then her hand was gone, back to the harp before Harry could catch it in his. She plucked a chord, echoed it aloud. _I’m afraid I haven’t much knowledge of flutes. This one was my voice._ She tilted her head, faint delight pulling at her mouth. _No one else seemed to understand it, though._

Harry lifted the flute. “So I’ll play it. This song—”

_Rolls off your fingertips._

Harry studied her, then placed the flute to his lips. 

The notes, whispery and shy at first, gathered strength. Harry was certain it wasn’t so much his strength as Luna coaxing the music from him. But he was glad to let it come. It twined around the harp sounds, and Luna’s voice rode above them both, mantling itself in their luxury.

“The people were saying no two e’re were wed, but one has a sorrow that never was said…”

It was being spoken to him, somehow. Not sung. It felt as though it had always been a part of him, and yet Harry had never been aware of it before. His eyes flew to Luna’s and she met his gaze. Faces passed unbidden before him, and voices. Ginny’s. But there were others. He concentrated on Ginny’s voice, and Luna’s eyes flickered. 

“And she smiled as she passed me with her goods and her gear…” Like the girl in her song. A sad smile. “And that was the last that I saw of my dear.”

It was a moment he could not see the end of. Briefly he heard something other than the words she sang, speaking to a place deep inside. Luna’s eyes searched his and there was that expectation again. Harry blinked. The flute trilled sorrowfully and the moment faded. Luna’s voice dropped, rose again.

“I dreamt it last night that my true love came in…”

Harry stared at the flute in his hands. It was varnished oak, a dusky bronze. Luna’s fingers flickered against the strings in the corner of his vision, a flinch. Harry looked closer. 

Her hands shook. Harry watched as blood slid in rivulets down the strings. The crimson rolled richly in the firelight. Luna continued to play, and Harry could only tell the blood from the chafed skin by its slick gleam.

“Luna.” He took her wrists gently, guiding her hands away from the harp. Luna stared at him solemnly. Her voice continued to fill the emptiness with lilting chords.

There was a pop behind Harry and a house-elf came silently around him. With a small bow to both of them, the elf took Luna’s hands and began bandaging her fingertips with thin strips of gauze. Harry watched the nimble fingers wrap the gauze around and around. Luna sang on, intent on the care being given to her hands.

_It’s too bad, really. I do so love the harp._

Something was building within Harry, burgeoning and feverish. He’d only given voice to it once, when she’d first suggested undertaking this spell, and Luna had gazed at him for so long he had wondered at what he’d said. He couldn’t give voice to this, not the truth of it. It had become selfish, and Harry had been shaken free of that reality long ago.

It seemed long ago.

Harry moved closer, taking the bandages and Luna’s hands. The house elf blinked up at him with large, watery eyes, then backed away and vanished. Harry turned Luna’s hands over, surveying the pale skin, the bluish veins lacing her wrists. “Would it really be so hurtful to heal you?”

She sound amused. _It would interfere with the magic, Harry._

He grimaced.

_This sort of pain is like music. It must be thought through. Like all things, actually._

“Luna.” The backs of her fingers settled against his palms. He squeezed back. “Have you thought this through?”

_I have plenty of time to think._

Her singing voice rose, drifting up an octave and back down. Harry shook his head. “You give too much for this.”

“So softly she entered, her feet made no din…” _Many people have given for this. Many people will give for this._

“What have I given, then?” Harry asked. He didn’t look at her. But she spoke in his head once more. 

_Oh, but you have already sacrificed what is yours to give, Harry._

He found her peering at him as though there were something about him she did not understand. She shook her head, smiling dismissively. _But no matter. I am waiting for it to come. That moment. It’ll be worth it then._

Harry sighed. “When Voldemort is dead.” 

The song came as sweet and haunting as ever, but her face pinched, perplexed once more. Then she grinned openly. 

_Oh, that._ “She came close beside me and this she did say…” _I mean when they arrive. When you finally have what you need._

Harry reached out, took her hand, and she gripped his fingers again.

“It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.”

An hour passed. 

The fire guttered until all that was left were coals like sunlit rubies. Harry’s mind drifted on Luna’s voice and he settled into the heat of the room.

And then, a shiver all around them. The air grew minutely denser. Luna’s eyes fluttered open mid-note and her shoulders rose and fell. _Well, then. It’s time._

Harry felt the wards change, subtly reshaping themselves. The final notes of Luna’s song hung in the air, and for the space of a breath, Harry felt the safety wrap around him like a quilt. Absolute, and stronger than anything he remembered. Luna’s note slipped into silence and the quilt faded into the gauzy presence of the new wards. Resounding quiet pressed in.

Luna shivered. Harry stood and stepped closer. Luna’s face was suddenly a wan echo of what it had been under the spell’s influence. The shadows beneath her eyes had swept over her at last, and she looked gaunt in the rose light. She smiled weakly up at him. But her irises were clouding, Harry could see it already. 

When she fell, he was there, catching her before she reached the floor. He raised one of her arms over his neck. Her fingers clutched his collar and she sighed. Harry eased a hand beneath her knees and lifted from the chair. Luna slumped against him, and he was surprised at the warmth of her body. She felt fragile, a wilted flower he would crush if he gripped too tightly. He looked down and saw wide eyes staring blankly back. Such colour there, even behind the fog. Still vibrant when the rest of her was not.

“They’ve started out,” she croaked. Her voice rasped like broken glass. But Harry had not flinched in some days. Luna took a deep, rattling breath. “Be here. Soon.”

Harry smiled down at her tenderly. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Her eyes had already closed, her body limp in his arms when he reached the bed in the corner. He laid her down and her hair spilled out over the white pillow. In the last gleam of the coals, it almost had the lustre of moments before. Harry touched her sunken cheek, then settled the blankets over her. Luna did not stir. She lay nestled in the bedclothes as if she had always been there. 

It was a fine fantasy to believe in.

Harry closed the bed hangings, the grating around the fireplace, and then the door behind him, leaving the room to its shadows. He walked the halls to his own chamber in flickering silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An absolutely GORGEOUS piece of art was done by Red Rahl for this chapter: [**Harplight**](http://rahly-furverted.livejournal.com/17270.html#cutid1)


	2. Of Caves and Dusty Places

**originally posted 2/1/07**

 

Early the next morning, Draco finally found what he was looking for, so early the stars still pricked the heavens and the moon cast a watery sheen over the leaves. Wiltshire rolled out to his left, the dew on the grass shining dimly. From his vantage point at the edge of the trees, he could see every tiny movement over the downs. The small hours of the night lent a silence that finally allowed his heart to settle. It was not the complete, worrying silence he had learned to be wary of; the air was full of rustles, the calls of night-dwelling animals. An owl hooted somewhere in the forest. 

He looked over his shoulder to find Ginny Weasley coming along with weary steps. Her head was turned toward the forest, eyes flickering with an alertness not echoed by the rest of her body. She was deeper in the shadows than he was, and the greyish splash of moonlight meddled with his eyesight, even at that close range. Were she not moving, he would have had to stare for quite a bit longer to pick her out between the trees.

Draco changed direction gradually, heading further into the woods, and after some hesitation, his companion followed. The forest was beginning to abut against the massive rocks he had been looking for. They jutted up out of the ground for a few hundred metres. Not much cover. But it would be enough, provided the conditions were right. 

Draco picked his way along, running a hand over the smooth chalkstone, and nearly stumbled over what he’d been seeking. Surrounded by a close circle of thorny shrubs, there was a narrow recess in the rock, low to the ground and darker than the night sky. Draco halted outside, heard Ginny stop behind him, and studied the opening. The bushes had been undisturbed for some time; no broken branches or scattered leaves. Unless the last visitor had been very, very careful, no one had been here for months. Draco crouched down and turned to Ginny. He was gratified to see that she was already perched low on the balls of her feet, swaying slightly to keep her balance.

“Stay here,” he whispered. She just looked at him. Draco turned and inched forward, peering into the alcove. All was still inside, as far as his newly accustomed eyes could see. He eased his hand into one pocket and closed his fingers around cool obsidian, then edged into the cave.

The cave did not go very far back, and he could instantly see that it was empty. He stood slowly—the ceiling inside was quite a bit higher than the opening had led him to believe—and paced the circumference, feeling his way along the walls. The air was cool and dry, and he could hear the trickle of water somewhere, possibly outside. Draco walked the space with the precision of detachment, crossing and doubling back until he had covered every inch of the floor. His hands trailed along the ceiling above his head in sweeping circles. He disliked not being able to use magic for this; it left so many uncertainties. But using it would be far worse. At least this way he could be sure of no invisibility potions or cloaks. 

Finally satisfied that there was no one concealed within, Draco crawled back to the entrance and waved Ginny inside. She came through with a great deal of care and a greater deal of wariness, eyes darting and blinking as soon as she was standing again. She went straight to the far wall and began her own perusal of the interior. It impressed him, grudgingly.

She stopped at last and looked at him. Her shoulders were hunched, eyes narrowed. Draco paid it no mind. It really was inconsequential. He shrugged off his pack, sweeping the cloak from his shoulders. “We’ll sleep here.”

She snorted softly. “I’ll keep first watch, Malfoy.”

Draco looked her over. She was quite obviously worn to the bone. There were bags under her eyes and an acute slump to her frame that told him she teetered on the edge of collapse. Yet her face held a fervent distrust that shrouded even her weariness. She rocked on her feet. Her lips thinned and he saw that she was determined to gain victory in this.

He wanted to laugh at the absurdity. Here, at least, was something they had in common.

He gave her a dispassionate nod and lowered himself to the cave floor, wrapping his cloak around his body. Let her kill him as he slept if she wanted to. He was the only way she had of getting to where Harry Potter was; without him to guide her, she would never find her destination. As far as Draco knew, he was the only person who had been told the actual location of the castle, save those already housed within its walls. 

Draco frowned, massaging a kink in his arm. Even with that knowledge, he was not fully equipped to find the stronghold. The spell surrounding the castle would never let them inside so easily. He was to wait for a signal, something that would guide them past the wards. He hadn’t the foggiest idea what it would be, but he had learned that ‘cryptic’ did not always—or often—mean ‘problematic.’ He would know what he was looking for when he got there. 

Draco forced his twitching muscles to relax. Ginny sat down somewhere behind him, and he felt her staring at his back. He dragged his satchel under his head, then took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes. With a practice born of long nights in jittery darkness, he sent his thoughts away until blankness was all that remained, and began to drift.

* * *

Harry woke with the scent of smoke hovering in his nostrils. Luna’s voice was bright and clear, filtering out of the very walls. The room shone; dust motes drifted through a thin shaft of yellow coming through the window, and the gold pooled on the floor.

Harry stood and stretched. He breathed deeply and the air was clear once again. He walked across the room to stand in the sunlight. He couldn’t remember a morning in the past two months that had begun with the touch of the sun. Always rain. Today, the stones under the mullioned glass radiated heat into his feet, his legs, and finally his body. Harry’s stomach jumped once, then settled, and he shook his head to clear the cobwebs of his dreams.

It had been an entire week since he’d dreamt of Hogwarts. Once again, he’d woken smelling the smoke.

It took a moment to find his clothing, heaped on a moth-bitten chair next to the bed, and he tugged on the chilly garments gingerly. He shook out his robes and swept them around his shoulders, sighing as the heavier cloth settled against him. When he came back, he’d light a fire for himself, enjoy the warmth.

The sunlight bathing the narrow hallway shifted as the wind rolled the clouds past outside. Harry stopped, caught by the colours the dusty stained glass made over the tapestries. The carefully cut and welded picture windows had not seen proper sunlight in months. He looked over the pictures as he walked, sinuous creatures and lithe half-humans depicted in translucent reds, tawny golds, and rich greens. 

The largest window held an ancient shield with three lions, claws outstretched and teeth bared, surrounding a large white rose. Golden banners fluttered along the edges, and the ornate glasswork shimmered. Time had long since forgotten the family that had dwelt here. It was not a line recognised in any Wizarding text, and there were no Muggles in the vicinity to offer an answer of their own. Harry knew this shield from somewhere back before real magic had edged into his consciousness. Some class at school, some book… But it had faded, pushed to the recesses by more pressing matters.

Harry stopped by Luna’s room and found her being tended to by another house-elf, who had dressed her in royal blue robes and was changing the bandages on her hands with studious care. Now she was singing again, Luna’s hair sparkled, flowing in freshly combed tresses, and her voice leapt gaily about the room. She smiled in response to his greeting, and Harry made his way downstairs to the kitchens for his usual boysenberry scone and pot of spiced tea, before winding back up three floors to the dusky room that housed the library.

The library was still and stuffy, as always. He opened one of the massive windows along the east wall. Fresh air curled into the room through Luna’s ward, rustling the pages of the hide-bound tomes he had left out the previous evening. The light filled in the room’s nooks and Harry pulled his chair close to the book he had been perusing last. 

It was worn green leather, possibly dragon hide, edged in wrought silver, and so large it had taken all his strength simply to get it off the shelf and onto the weathered dais where it now rested. This particular page was well-thumbed, having been studied by many members of the Order over the last year. Harry blew on his tea and scanned the tiny handwritten print. 

Ah, yes. He’d been feeling depressed yesterday.

_…the significant role Respondent Magic plays in a fully functional society. Although often relegated to less diplomatic eras, Respondent Magic remains a unique element of magical theory, and continues to shape the practice of several branches of commonly used enchantments. Respondent Magic was, for a time, outlawed as inhumane, but this is a direct contradiction to the very basis of this type of magic. It is simply impossible for true Respondent Magic to be forced upon any magic user, and it is equally impossible to cast any of the most practical applications without the utmost willingness and specific intent of the above-mentioned magic-user. Records of successful use of Respondent Magic date back to Ancient Sumeria and Classical Greece, but earlier evidence has appeared in pre-Egyptian records, and in the artwork of pre-agricultural civilisations. The cave-paintings of the Western Caucasus show deliberate usage and understanding of preliminary forms of Respondent Magic, but there is a distinct lack of control up until the coming of the…_

Harry skimmed over the timeline detailing evidence of Respondent Magic until he found the dates pertaining to Ancient Greece and Macedonia. He paused, finger resting against the cracked parchment over “ασπίς άσματος.” Quilled with loving attention beneath the curved Greek letters was the English translation: Siren’s Ward.

This one was for use in less diplomatic eras. Luna had been right about that, at least. Diplomacy was a forgotten word. But Respondent Magic was ancient and unpredictable. Harry’s amusement was bitter. He himself was the product of Respondent Magic; his very existence was owed to the oldest form of it, and true to its nature, the magic had taken as much as it had given when his mother had invoked it almost two decades ago. And yet he had allowed it to be used again in another form, on one of his closest friends. The initial stages and demands of the Siren’s Ward had surprised even Mad-Eye, but by then it had been too late to call it off; Luna was already fast in its grip. 

Harry wished he had been there to stop her. Too many people had given too much already. The more peaceful years before the war seemed like some sort of advance compensation for what the world was going through now, and the shards of normality that still thrust their way through the mire were tainted. Ginny Weasley was on her way to restore the balance. Harry could barely remember the exact colour of her hair, the playful quirk of her smile. But the price of his—their—happiness was already being collected. Luna was paying, and Hermione, and… Harry could picture the sharp, fatigued features of Ginny’s guide more clearly than he could see Ginny’s face. Draco Malfoy had already paid more than Harry had ever wanted to see anyone pay. 

Yes, Draco Malfoy could understand Respondent Magic. 

Harry snapped the book shut and turned to the smaller text at his elbow. Some days he just could not go down certain paths of thought.

Eventually the sunlight was drowned by the ever-present cloud cover. A house-elf slipped in to light the lamps before leaving just as unobtrusively. Harry found himself humming along with Luna as he read. The new tune was a song he knew fairly well. 

He’d first heard it sung in the Three Broomsticks two years ago by a lissome witch with bottomless-black hair and skin. It had been late, he’d had a beer he shouldn’t have had, and the words rolled in calming waves. He had looked up at the singer, blinked, and suddenly seen the turrets of Hogwarts rising out of the darkness toward a scarred, messy haired eleven-year-old with no idea of what lay beyond those colossal walls. The lake had sparkled under the bright lights of the castle. Harry remembered the warmth of the place upon entering, the gargantuan dimensions of the structure. And of course, the shiver of otherworldly elements he had never recognised but had somehow always known existed within himself. 

The words to the song were simple, steeped in comfort he had never found except during that first night in Hogwarts, that sudden introduction to who and what he really was. The departure from what he had been.

“Come by the hills to the land where fancy is free,  
And stand where the peaks meet the sky and the rocks reach the sea.”

It was silly. It was only a song.

He frowned, the sleepy ease of the library suddenly gone. He shook himself, muttering. “Get used to it. It’s been months.”

They had all lost things. Harry had lost almost everything inanimate that he’d owned. And the people to whom they had all been forced to say goodbye left a much deeper void. But Harry had never expected to lose Hogwarts, not even in his wildest nightmares.

And yet it had happened. Somehow, the impenetrable castle had been reduced to a burnt-out shell of masonry and broken glass. Scattered parchment, singed draperies twisting across a blackened lawn. The forest, rising up in flames. 

And within the tumbled walls, something far more important and irreplaceable had been lost.

Harry shut the book with a thud and pushed himself to his feet. He left the library, knowing how dangerous his current thoughts were, and wanting to be in his room when the full weight of what had happened to the school hit him yet again.

Luna sang on.

“Where the rivers run clear and the bracken is gold in the sun,  
And the cares of tomorrow must wait till this day is done.”

* * * 

Draco’s eyes flew open. He jerked upright. Sleep still swam through his head, but every muscle was tight, quivering. He couldn’t catch his breath.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye. Weasley’s eyes darted. Her gaze was shrewd and suspicious.

Draco hunched his shoulders. His breathing was still too fast. He pulled his cloak off the ground and shifted until his back was up against the rock wall.

“Weasley,” he muttered. “Get some sleep.”

The look she turned on him was almost bitter. He could see she was holding back words, probably worth hearing at any other time, but today he didn’t care. Weasley slid to the ground, hesitated for one weighted moment, and then decisively turned her back on him, tucking her knees up. Draco watched until her breathing evened, but it took many more minutes before he was sure she was asleep.

Chilly air rushed into the cave, hastened by the narrow crevice entry. It was laden with the sweet tang of rain. Draco tugged his cloak around himself, pulling his knees close to his chest. The ends of Weasley’s bedraggled ponytail ruffled briefly and settled back to the cave floor. Draco looked away, forcing the last eddies of sleep from his mind.

It was not the first time he had dreamt of Albus Dumbledore, and Draco had no delusions that it would be the last. He no longer had any idea what to expect when he fell asleep. The dream took on new meaning every time he had it, warping itself into stranger, more disturbing versions of the same moment in time. There had been a point, the space of two months, when Draco could not remember what had really happened that night on the Astronomy Tower, when his persistent dreams wove terrible lies into the fabric of memory.

But the truth did not allow him to dwell in ignorance for long. It returned with silent stealth just when he thought he’d gone far enough out of his mind to rid himself of its presence forever.

Gloomy light filtered through the narrow aperture. Dusk? He didn’t believe he had slept that long. More likely it was only the reminder that, no matter how torn apart the country might be, he was still in rainy grey England. 

His home. He hadn’t been able to claim a real home for almost two years. They were all homeless now. 

Some nights, Draco found that Dumbledore’s arguments struck just deep enough and his wand fell from his fingers to the rooftop. The ancient wizard spoke the elusive word, home, so very gently, and Draco awoke, gasping back sobs at how bitterly impossible that was. How untrue, how there were too many years between then and now, and there was no way he could go back.

Whenever the dream altered, he could see it all laid out before him on a table, the pitiful nights when his subconscious tried to make a paradise of reality’s mess, tried to fit it to images he could still comprehend. Or perhaps it was that he was still willing to comprehend them. As though he enjoyed the pain. 

At least this time Dumbledore had not hissed at him like a snake in the emerald-spangled darkness: _It was you who did this, not he. Not Snape. Now there is no place for you._

There were other versions, just as disturbing. Some nights, Harry Potter stood there and watched him fail to act, or watched as he raised his wand and struck Dumbledore down in an eruption of green light. Those were the nights Draco woke without breath, feeling as if all the eyes in what was left of this miserable, rotting world were fixed upon him. To be observed at such a forlorn moment, to wake clenching his wand in shaking fingers, not knowing which spells had actually burst out of that wand and which spells were the fanciful leanings of nightmare. 

Draco tightened his cloak further, scowling. He had no idea why he should dream such things; Harry Potter had not been anywhere near that rooftop. Draco had seen him later, chasing them down to the—

It was association, that was all. There was no sense in such pointless examination. The look on Potter’s face hung on the insides of Draco’s eyelids, but he forced it away. Nonexistent, past tense. Inconsequential.

But the past crept up on him anyway. 

Draco turned his eyes to the patch of light coming through the entrance. Outside, it began to rain.

* * *

It had been raining that day, too.

His first plunge into the puddle splashed muddy water all over his trousers. His wand slipped in his fingers, still sizzled under the onslaught of rain. He’d not known a wand could get so hot. Behind him, Theodore Nott let out a muffled curse as he too hit the puddle, but Draco did not look back. They weren’t alone, his gut told him so, and after the close call moments before, he expected nothing less.

It had been luck. That was the only way he could push the rising hysteria from his mind. A Death Eater, right in front of them. No warning. All the same, Draco had fired first. The only spell the man had gotten off hit Theodore in the stomach, knocking him over, but leaving him blinking and shaken only. He’d gotten to his feet, and Draco had slapped a Minis-port on the prone body of their opponent. They hadn’t even waited until he vanished. Where there was one Death Eater, there were usually more. Even Minis-ports were traceable. 

“Have to get out of here.” Draco wiped his eyes free of water. He was soaking, rain dripping from his sleeves and trouser legs, running in rivulets down his arms. He looked around, but all he saw were trees, nearly black through the curtain of water. He spared a look behind him, then turned fully. 

Theodore had gone down onto his knees, one hand on the ground. His arm was half submerged in the puddle. Draco took one last moment to check the treeline, then ran back.

“Just give me a minute,” Theodore hissed. He took a deep breath. Draco knelt, one knee in the water, and put his hand on Theodore’s back. 

“We have to move.”

Theodore nodded, then doubled over and coughed blood into the water. Draco’s hands flew up to hold him just as Theodore toppled into him. “Hemorrhagus,” Theodore muttered. One hand climbed slowly over his belly. He drew a ragged breath and coughed again, and the blood flowed over his chin, turning the puddle crimson. 

Draco’s heart knocked into his ribs. He turned Theodore carefully, laying him on his back on firmer ground. The rain lashed his face, streaking through the red and baring the pale skin of his chin. Theodore smiled ruefully up at Draco. 

“I guess it wasn’t as harmless as… as I thought.”

Draco shook his head. He wiped the blood from Theodore’s lips, the rivulets sliding down his cheeks into dark hair. The front of Theodore’s drenched shirt was a widening stain, turning his skin ashen in comparison. It didn’t look real, any of it. 

“Bad?” Draco said in a low voice. Theodore nodded, opened his mouth to speak, and another fit of coughing arched him from the ground. Draco slid his arm beneath Theodore and raised his shoulders out of the mud. Theodore choked, then swallowed. 

“Bad enough,” was all he said. 

Draco pulled him out of the slop into his lap. A clap of thunder ground into his ears. Theodore blinked against the rain. His breathing was raw and raspy.

Draco’s hand fluttered helplessly; his fingers tightened around Theodore’s already loose collar, slid over his rain-slicked cheek. “Grimmauld. I can Apparate us both.”

Theodore grabbed his wrist. “No,” he said, struggling not to cough. “They’ll feel it.”

“Then let me—”

“N… no wands,” came the breathless reply.

“Theodore, we have to get—”

The other man shook his head. He arched again and the fingers around Draco’s wrist squeezed painfully. Draco wrapped his arm more tightly around the Theodore’s body, thinking that he could hold everything in place.

“You.” Theodore took a gasping breath. “Have to leave, Draco.”

Draco shook his head. Theodore was so pale now. The blood traced his lips in crimson lace. Draco fought with his own shirt sleeve and wiped it away. “Fuck it all, I’m not just going to leave you here!”

Another bout of coughing had Draco struggling to hold him. It was worse than any before. He shut his eyes and clutched Theodore’s shuddering body closer against his. Theodore twisted and gave a great gasp, then slumped into Draco’s arms. The sudden cessation of the spasm frightened Draco and he jerked up, eyes darting over Theodore’s face. The man blinked into the rain, lips moving silently.

When Theodore’s eyes finally met his, they were calm, the colour of sea foam. He reached a shaking hand to touch Draco’s face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more to you,” he whispered. 

Draco’s head was already shaking, shaking. He caught Theodore’s face between both hands, wiping at his chin with his thumbs.

“Don’t say that, gods, don’t _say_ that—”

Theodore’s body began to jerk. More blood flowed over his lips, the darkest red Draco had ever seen. Draco’s eyes blurred. “Just hold on, please, gods, I can Apparate us both…”

Theodore was barely looking at him now. His breaths came in too-swift gasps. In out—in—out, in out— 

There was an abrupt stillness, and his lover smiled up at him sleepily. In. Out… In… 

The hand touching Draco’s face dropped, landing palm-up on the trampled grass. Draco dashed a hand across his eyes. Theodore’s pale irises went unfocussed, looking blindly into the rain. His body settled heavily in Draco’s arms.

Draco shook his head once, a vague twist of his neck. His hand crawled across the grass, found Theodore’s. “No,” he said weakly. He bent and pressed his lips to Theodore’s cooling forehead. 

He took a breath, and then his lungs were heaving, spilling sounds into the rain.

* * * 

Weasley turned over in her sleep and Draco swung up out of his reverie. The images faded, but the dark red remained ingrained in his brain, the green dwindling of Theodore’s eyes.

Draco had Apparated, stumbled through the wards right into Grimmauld Place to startled stares and frightened shouts. Hands pulled his lover’s body from his arms, others guided him to sit, tilting his head, wiping Theodore’s blood from his skin. But that was not something he truly remembered. It was what they told him had happened, afterward. Draco didn’t see much of anything that night.

The funeral was short, edged with uneasiness. Draco stayed until the chill fog crept in, darker and darker, until Potter’s stag Patronus erupted, until people were shouting, and he was forced to Apparate away with the rest. He spent the night staring with dry eyes at the moldy ceiling of Black’s old manor. 

They knew Draco cried. They spoke of it in low tones.

And that made the guilt worse. Draco couldn’t tell any of them that he had not cried for Theodore. He cried _because_ he did not cry for Theodore at all. The green eyes that haunted his thoughts were not the pale jade of his lover’s.

The rain dripped a soft pit-pat against the chalkstone. Draco grimaced. He joined wars for all the wrong reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red_rahl made me cry when she drew this one: [**Loss**](http://rahly-furverted.livejournal.com/17513.html) (contains spoilers for chapter 2)


	3. Better Unknown

**originally posted 2/12/07**

 

On May 7th, 1998, the largest mass exodus ever recorded in Great Britain began. America had promised aid, and with France on the verge of collapse and all of Scandinavia disturbingly silent, wizards and Muggles alike picked up their families and belongings, and left the island nation by any means available. The rumors of peace in Eastern Asia were tantalizing, a land bolstered by an ancient magic; safety in the vast stretches of the United States drew thousands. The American Ministry, its own Death Eater factions outnumbered and well in hand, promised reinforcements within months.

Two months after the Exodus began, all magical communication with America went abruptly quiet. Political ties evaporated; long-standing wards mysteriously and irretrievably broke. Fearing a repeat of Scandinavia, the British Ministry ceased all attempts at communication, and outlawed all travel to North America until an explanation for the strange magical smothering could be found.

~ 

Ginny watched through slitted eyelids as Malfoy rose from his spot against the wall. If she hadn’t been awake, she never would have heard him. He stretched noiselessly and worked his fingers through tangled hair. There had been a time when Malfoy would never have allowed a single strand to lie out of place. Her fifth year? No, before that. She remembered him looking only half awake her fifth year.

It wasn’t until he tugged his shirt up over his head that she realised what he was doing. Fair skin was revealed, a graceful spine and neck. A thin scar ran from the middle of his ribs on the left side, sloping across his backbone to meet his opposite hip. It did not belong there, marring the smoothness of his flesh. Ginny traced it with her eyes. The harmless white line spoke of a much deeper wound. Perhaps dangerously deep. It was well healed over.

Harry had told her of the scars he’d inadvertently imposed upon the body in front of her during his sixth year. This one across Malfoy’s back did not fit.

Malfoy crouched and rifled through his satchel. The line of his spine appeared more clearly under his skin, curving in the light. Ginny heard the faint clink-rustle of whatever was in his pack, and then Malfoy pulled out a neatly folded turtleneck. He straightened. It was hard to see in this light, but Ginny thought she caught a whisper of black on his left forearm. He put his arm through one of the sleeves, pulled the turtleneck over his head, and Ginny squinted, almost forgetting herself and sitting up. 

She couldn’t be sure; it might have been a shadow.

Malfoy smoothed his shirt and bent again. One hand disappeared back into his satchel, and after moment, his entire body just… stilled. One moment he was tense, balancing on the balls of his feet, and the next, all the movement had simply deserted his frame. He was looking at something but whatever it was remained out of sight in the pack. 

A tight flicker crossed the features she could see. Abruptly, his shoulders rolled back. Malfoy craned his neck from side to side, dropping whatever held his attention and closing the pack. He stood with a jerk. Ginny just barely shut her eyes in time.

Footsteps approached. They reached level with her head and paused. She could feel him looking at her. When he at last moved away, she didn’t know if her ruse had been successful or not.

She heard a scuffle of shoes on stone, and then silence. He’d left the cave. Ginny counted to fifteen, then opened her eyes. The shadows on the far wall were soft grey, motionless. She rolled over carefully, ready to feign sleep, to find only sunlight gleaming through the narrow aperture.

Ginny sat up at once, gaze fixed on the empty cave entrance. He’d left, presumably to have a look around, perhaps for other more private reasons. But the end result was that he was gone. Without his bag.

She brushed her hands off on her trouser legs and approached the bag, eyes darting, memorising every detail about how it looked resting against the wall. The tilt of the single dingy buckle, the fall of the visible shoulder strap. 

It would not do for Malfoy to realise she had touched it.

A year ago, Ginny would have never touched a bag belonging to anyone else, and especially not Draco Malfoy. The numerous potential enchantments on another’s belongings made the idea ludicrous. But there was no magic in this cave. There was nothing so obvious anywhere in the open, nor had there been for near on nine months. There was nothing like that here. Malfoy, a most desirable target, would never give the Death Eaters such an easy way to find him.

It took only a moment to unfasten the buckle. Ginny eased her hands in and pushed aside the thin canvas. The bag was a worn tan colour, and it stood on its own, weighted to the floor by whatever was inside. She expected to find clothing rumpled on top, but Malfoy was as highborn as always: what he had was folded at the bottom, the muted green of a jumper barely visible. Ginny’s fingers slipped over a seam near the hem. A pocket, shallow canvas of the same shade as the rest, sewn directly into the hem. She edged it open and was caught by the glitter of black obsidian.

There had to be at least ten of them in there, smooth and smallish stones. Ginny was careful not to touch them. She had heard about Ministry Portkeys, or Minis-ports. They were the only thing small enough not to leave a traceable flash of magic, and all Aurors had carried them, back when the title of Auror had mattered. Now only a few people still had any. Malfoy undoubtedly had several on his person right now. 

Their development had taken months of work from the best Charmers their side possessed. Flitwick himself had worked on them before York, and the Exodus. These particular shards would not react to Malfoy’s magical aura, but anyone else who touched them would be spirited away before he or she could gasp. They must still be keyed to the Ministry in London. There was still some benefit in that, if a person meant to remove a threat from the immediate vicinity quickly. The bowels of the Ministry were a veritable maze nowadays.

She pressed the lip of the pocket closed and moved on.

There was a canteen on a frayed strap. A few scraps of blank parchment. A toothbrush. Her replacement wand, resting upright against the side of the bag. Blaise had passed it directly on to Malfoy at the cathedral. Her former guards had kept it from her there as well to prevent inadvertent use, but giving it to Malfoy for the journey still tasted sour in the pit of her stomach. Ginny stroked the wood gently. For a moment she contemplated just taking it back, hiding it in the folds of her robes. But it was pointless; Malfoy would notice its absence and take it from her again, and using it even in self-defence was so foolish that the very idea made Ginny scowl.

Besides, his wand was right here in the sack next to hers.

She glanced at the empty entranceway and went deeper. There was a misshapen roll of cloth in the depths of the satchel. Ginny pulled it out. A scrap of midnight blue material, wrapped around and around a long, hard object. She peeled away the cloth, noting the coarse fabric. From a cloak, perhaps. It was raggedy-edged; dark stains mottled the surface like patches of frost. Ginny pulled the fabric free at last. Now, why in the world…? The material was stiff. She lifted it to her nose, but only smelled the musk of rain. 

It had been wrapped carefully, concealing a box carved from undecorated, lightweight wood. Ginny’s heart sped up; she forgot to wonder about the strangely stained fabric. If her new companion had anything she could use against him, any leftover ties to his former friends, this secretive little hiding place would be ideal, wouldn’t it just? He was a Malfoy after all, and they simply did not change their colours. But they were patient, patient purebloods, and there would always be a right moment for Draco Malfoy to reap whatever it was he was sowing in the war’s soil. She snapped the box open and stopped, staring.

Inside lay a lock of someone’s hair.

Her mind rebelled. Malfoys didn’t have a big enough hole in the ice over their hearts to care about such a trinket. But there it was, resting in the box before her eyes.

It was the colour of cornsilk, but longer and of a lighter tone than Malfoy’s. Ginny touched it with a hesitant finger. A girl’s? It was unlikely, considering what she knew of Draco Malfoy, but then, there were many things she didn’t know about him and she was often the first to point that out to more trusting individuals. The hair was curled into a loose coil, but it was straight hair, she would bet on it. As straight as Malfoy’s.

When recognition suddenly hit, she let her breath out in a whoosh that stirred the ends of the coil. It was his— It was _Narcissa Malfoy’s,_ Ginny corrected swiftly, but it was too late; the word ‘mother’ was there.

Images of Narcissa came next: a tilted, haughty chin, a permanent sneer… the whisper-swish of almost-platinum hair against a graceful back. But every time Ginny had seen her, she realised, the woman had been beside her son. A perfectly manicured hand touching his shoulder, her body angled subtly toward the youngest Malfoy.

Molly Weasley was ‘mother.’ Indisputable. But Narcissa Malfoy had never worn that title in Ginny’s mind until now. Her finger crept out of its own accord and brushed the shining strands again. It was obviously a treasured possession, one for which Malfoy had sacrificed crucial space in his pack. Delicately coiled, tucked away in a box, and wrapped in a stained piece of cloak. Which was another mystery all on its own.

The sound of branches rustling outside brought Ginny out of her stupor. She hurriedly closed the lid of the box and wound the scrap of cloth around it, then set everything to rights in the satchel. A few well-placed pokes had the bag looking rumpled and undisturbed once more. She scooted back to her cloak and drew it over her body, then concentrated on relaxing. When Malfoy returned, things would be exactly as they had been, or she was no member of the Order.

* * *

The clouds rolled as if being pushed by the distant thunder. Wind flapped at Hermione’s cloak, dragging the warmth away and prickling her skin. She tugged her hood around her face.

She had fifteen minutes until she had to be in Llangollen. That was where Ginny had last been ‘seen.’ Then twenty minutes until Wensleydale, with Luna’s wand instead, provided she could find Hannah in time. If not, Hannah would simply go to Wensleydale herself and wait for her. There was a sign with a green dragon on it. 

If the pub building was still standing.

Hermione looked cursorily up and down the deserted, rock-strewn street. But it was mere habit tonight. She hadn’t seen a living Death Eater in weeks. Hannah’d had a run-in with one in Glasgow several nights ago, but he’d been “young, inexperienced, dealt with easily.” Hermione had not asked for details; the pierce of Hannah’s gaze reminded her too much of the look on her own face that second week after Christmas—

Hermione shut her eyes, turning her face upward into the scattering of raindrops. Now, creeping alone trough the ruins of Salisbury, now was not the time to dwell on what had happened last Christmas. She pushed with a weary desperation at the images that threatened to cloud over her, but she was already too late. Her stomach a dull knot of remembered nausea.

Hermione leaned against a tilting slab of wall and rubbed her arms, peering out from her pocket of shadow into the street beyond. Where was Hannah?

Perhaps Hermione had misjudged. She inched along to a gap in the buildings. The clouds rolled thickly overhead, a coming storm, but still out of reach was the hilltop of Old Sarum, hulking against the star-littered sky. Hermione searched her pockets for a hairband, then held it between her teeth as she smoothed her bushy mop into a ponytail, eyes darting, tracing the surviving landmarks. If only the cathedral spire were still standing, she would know exactly where she—

There. Just above the burnt-out shell of a building, a jagged spike of stone leapt against the cloud cover. It was too tall to be anything except the remnants of the toppled spire. Hermione’s hands stilled in her hair and she huffed softly. _Two blocks short, you nit. Bloody hell._

She took Ginny’s wand from where she’d tucked it between her knees. Only the patter of rain stood in her way, the sighing of the wind. Hermione skirted the blockade of fallen buildings. When she reached the place where the cross-street had been, she perused the area carefully. The wind, funneled into a whistle down the narrow street, whipped at her hair. But aside from the creak of timber and odd flap of ragged curtain, there was only stillness.

It no longer felt strange to use another’s wand. The uneasy tingle that had lanced up her arm the first night was now almost a necessity. It felt natural, as if her own wand had always given her a jolt or two just before a spell went off. Luna’s wand, strangely enough, tickled in her fingertips, and a jittery bounciness accompanied the magic it cast. Ginny’s was a fiery shock that Hermione imagined made the ends of her hair frizzle. She’d never thought how a person’s wand, a person’s magic, could hold so much of their personality within it.

Ron’s magic had filled her entire body with warmth.

The thoughts she had forbidden herself came over her so strongly she was halfway into the street before she first noticed the woman. Hermione froze, every nerve suddenly afire. The disarming spell was nearly past her lips before she realised the newcomer carried no wand.

The woman saw her and startled, stepping in front of… Hermione squinted into the drizzle and made out a child standing in her shadow. Hermione raised a hand cautiously and straightened.

They were dressed in filthy clothing: jeans, a bulbous winter jacket hanging down past the child’s knees, what had once been a dress coat whipping the woman’s thighs. They were both spattered with mud. The child’s eyes stared hugely at Hermione. The woman’s hair sagged under her woolen hat; her face was lined and openly weary. They had no aura that Hermione could sense, and while that meant little nowadays, something instinctive told her they were Muggles.

The woman met Hermione’s eyes. Her fingers were white-knuckled around the hand of her child. Hermione couldn’t tell if the child was a girl or a boy. 

The woman started forward, speaking in a raspy whisper. “Please, can you… can you help—”

Suddenly she went rigid, words choked off. Hermione blinked, then remembered the wand she clutched in full view. The woman snatched the child up and darted out of sight down an alleyway, quick as a bolting deer.

Hermione stood in the flash of moonlight between clouds, frozen by the final spark of hatred she had seen in the woman’s eyes. 

She ran a hand over her sodden hair. Tiny curls tangled around her fingers and she yanked her hand away angrily. _You can’t help every Muggle you see._ Something hot rose in her throat and she grimaced until it sank away again. 

Hadn’t they already done enough to the Muggles as it was?

The woman and her child would be safer in the city than with her. The best thing to do was to find Hannah, make the wand exchange, and get on with what she was supposed to be doing. The more places she went tonight, the more confused the Death Eaters would be, and the further away from their real target she could lure them. She only hoped this storm didn’t stretch over the Dales. She could do with a proper spot of warmth, and dry clothing for once.

Around the next corner, the street opened into a wide boulevard. Hermione didn’t know if it was by design or destruction. Far down past the street’s end, she could see the torn cathedral. It looked eerily lovely, carving blackly against the clouds above. The buildings were taller here; Hermione ventured away from the walls, simultaneously glad of and frustrated by the deep shadows. Her footing was uncertain enough, but the concealed heaps of rubble and uprooted stone made the going especially treacherous.

She would give half her food to Hannah along with Ginny’s wand. Her former schoolmate had looked alarmingly thin last time Hermione had seen her. And she would make her eat something before they Apparated to Wensleydale, even if she had to hold Hannah at wandpoint and force the issue. Hannah could be like that, forgetting to eat, even shoving food aside when she thought it too mundane to be bothered with. Hannah went on adrenaline and frayed nerves more than anything else. Hermione had never seen anyone so driven; but she wasn’t going to have a repeat of three months ago when Hannah had collapsed after furiously blowing Rabastan Lestrange twenty yards off the doorstep of Grimmauld Place. The man had died of his wounds, and Hannah had been a pale, undernourished mess for a week: lack of sustenance coupled with intense magic usage. 

But there was no secret headquarters to fall back on now, at least none that Hermione could get to on her own. It was too well hidden nowadays. Hannah would simply have to keep up her strength until Luna called them in. So. Eating.

Hermione moved around the edge of a pile of rubble, intent on reaching the end of the street. She was almost level with the pile when the clouds above parted again, letting a slice of starlight through onto the street below. Hermione glanced up, smiling at the glittering points of light. She allowed herself a brief moment. Rain spattered in thick drops onto her head and hands, and she looked down to avoid the rubble—

_Body._

It wasn’t rubble. Hermione blinked.

Hannah Abbott’s lifeless eyes stared up at her, filling slowly with rain.

Hermione dropped to her knees on the wet pavement. She could not stifle the sob, and the cry echoed like a baby’s discordant wail. Rain pit-patted in the darkness, swallowing the sound.

Hannah’s arms were spread, her hair a lopsided halo around her head, gold tarnished by the street’s filth. The front of her shirt and part of the now-lily-white skin of her stomach had been blackened by a grotesque char mark. Hermione’s eyes followed the dark snake’s curving form over Hannah’s side, from the eye sockets of the skull to where the tongue flicked a mangled burn just above her navel. As she watched, raindrops splatted down on the mark and washed rivulets of soot away.

Hannah’s wand… Luna’s… where was it? Perhaps someone had— Hermione searched the littered street, looking everywhere except at the body in front of her. It wasn’t Hannah. It _wasn’t._ Any second, Hannah would walk up behind her and touch her shoulder, and they would exchange identifying words and then begin picking their way out of the city, heading north because that’s where Luna tugged them when Hermione concentrated hard enough, and that’s where Harry was, and _that_ … that was where they’d be safe.

But Hermione Granger was not one to ignore what was right in front of her face.

She wiped her eyes and reached out a shaking hand to touch Hannah’s face. Her mind just wasn’t following. She had to feel it.

Hannah’s skin was slick with rainwater. Hermione laid her palm flat against her friend’s cheek, eyes blurring. But there was no chill there. Hermione’s fingers began to burn. The heat suddenly engulfed her hand in hot green flames. Hannah’s body gave a jump, and then blinding emerald light erupted from her open mouth, her nose, her staring eyes. Hermione snatched her hand back. She had a split second to see the searing, once-black Mark covering Hannah’s torso, to follow it up to the monstrous mirror image now coalescing like sinister insects high in the sky.

A crack sounded behind her. Hermione jerked around. A man in billowing robes had his wand pointed straight at her head. She dove to the side and felt the curse slam into Hannah’s inert body. Ginny’s wand pressed painfully into the burn on her palm.

“Expelliarmus!”

The man flew off his feet as if a giant had smacked him away. His wand soared into the darkness. Shouts erupted in the dank alleyways around her. Hermione scrambled to her feet, hearing crack after crack. She turned on her heel and Apparated Merlin knew where, knowing they’d be right behind her.

Her feet hit earth, and her knees followed. The smell of rain-soaked pine assaulted her nostrils. Another crack sounded just behind her. She staggered upright, Apparated again without thinking, and there was a hamlet, a tiny church, all dark, crumbling, deserted.

She clutched Ginny’s wand with numb fingers. _Has to be big. Enough to cover my Apparition._ She leveled the wand at the church.

“Obliterati detonare!”

The church shuddered, stones grinding raw against one another, and the walls exploded outward with a deafening boom. A huge slab of mortar and granite blocked the light from the blast as it rocketed toward her. Heat tingled on Hermione’s skin, the smell of Ginny’s magic, as she turned and Apparated again, praying with all her might that it had been enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful [**Off Guard**](http://rahly-furverted.livejournal.com/17724.html) by Red_rahl.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm posting this now because I'm off to Leviosa Con for the next few days and won't be posting much at all during that time, I expect. ^_^ See you on the flipside! (Or maybe I'll see some of you there!)


	4. Ruins

**originally posted 2/21/07**

 

The night was absolutely silent. The memory of wind trembled against Blaise’s mind, and he turned his face upward to the crystalline stars breaking through the clouds. The rain had been nothing but a weary drizzle, blanketing the land in oppressive stillness. But this was different. Blaise inhaled and let the air tease his throat and lungs. Clean. Crisp. The sky was so black beyond the pinprick lights.

He stretched out on his back in the grass. To his right, broken stone monoliths rose against the hills like voids, the ghost of a great castle where weeds already grew and magic still trickled. Even the wreck felt familiar. He’d expected it to be painful, treading the paths he’d walked before, when the stones were still whole under his feet and cheerful voices echoed down cavernous hallways. 

Somewhere there was a hole in the earth, and a set of mossy steps leading down into dungeons he knew like the back of his hand. If anything had been spared, it would be what lay below ground.

To the south, Hogsmeade was a jumble of buildings and forgotten magic. People still lived there. But the twinkling candle glow through frosted windows was gone, and the inhabitants let the quiet cloak their presence.

Blaise breathed deeply of the ancient air and let the tranquility steal over him. He had days, at least, until he had to drop his childhood away and pick up his orders once more. Days to think about how best to navigate the path to the north. His orders snagged at him with weak fingers. But the air was clean and the night as black as velvet.

* * *

It had not been planned. Not by Seamus Finnigan, a man who never planned for anything in his life. And not by Blaise Zabini, whose self-isolation only fed his insecurities about his new place in the war. It had been a mistake, wrought in the throes of alcoholic nights and lonely days. If Blaise had known what they were tampering with, he never would have messed about with it.

One night, caught in a depressive haze, no certain knowledge of Pansy, or Theodore, or Draco; the eyes of the Order watching Blaise even in his dreams, from shadows too deep to look into… and Finnigan’s blasted presence over by one of Grimmauld’s massive fireplaces. Blaise knew temptation. It was no longer just Finnigan’s golden skin or the flex of muscle beneath threadbare clothing. It was the comfort of solitude, the silence of someone who would give and give, and never tell another about what was resorted to in the glow of fireplace embers, or under torn blankets with clothing half removed, or with rainwater soaking through the thin shells of cloaks. Temptation was regularity, and understanding. Finnigan’s voice brought back the innocence of the past, eyes too blue to stare into unless one was willing to leap in headlong. 

Blaise had leapt.

They hadn’t known what they were really doing until the fifth time, when the sting of Finnigan’s mere touch made Blaise bite through his lip to keep quiet, and taste blood until his climax. He still remembered the utter fear in the Finnigan’s eyes afterward, the graze of panting breath over his face. Blaise felt as though he were sizzling away under a flood of acid, more Finnigan’s body than his own. He’d gotten up without a word, walked outside in the rain, and threw up in the bushes until he was empty. 

He’d not seen Finnigan for a week. When Seamus returned, with only the dead bodies of his two companions at his side, Blaise couldn’t fight the relief that he was only battered, that there was still warm blood coursing through his veins, and then he couldn’t fight the need to prove it for himself, to feel that heat against him and inside him. Another mistake; his body had torn itself free of _one_ ness that night and had searched for _two._ It was harsh and glorious, and it hurt inexplicably. Blaise had known then that they were careening toward some edge he still could not see or explain.

It was the oldest of bonds, forgotten in the dust of centuries, and peace. The first tendrils of it had slipped past his notice, riding on the sorrow of lost battles and fear of dying. Primal emotions, desperate ones. Blaise had heard of the ancient bonding spells, but they were myths, and had no place in the present. The core had changed potency under more modern, ‘enlightened’ skies, and the newer manifestations of such bonds required intent, nothing more than a decision to be together. 

The old spells, however, did not emerge through wand usage, and they exacted a much higher toll. With age came strength; Blaise could feel it rising through him, stealing his senses. And it wasn’t his strength; it was Finnigan’s, flooding Blaise’s body, Blaise’s mind. There was no real way to research what was happening to them—the Order’s libraries were woefully inadequate and under siege—but Blaise had simply known. Perhaps that was part of the magic. He felt it in his marrow: his body changing when Finnigan touched it, pleasure he’d never in his life imagined, but poisoned by the shards of confirmation. Terrifying; he didn’t love Seamus, and this bond was bigger than what they had. What they _did_ when loneliness finally caught up with them.

It invaded. It soldered iron links around them. Blaise cursed it in a shaking voice and denied it in the same.

The next weeks had been a glaze of pain around the edges of his mind. Finnigan was there, but not within his grasp. Blaise locked himself away and refused to search Finnigan out, until his nights were nothing but a mass of fever dreams and aching sorrow that _was not his._

But magic was a delicate thing. A patient thing.

It waited for a botched raid on a Death Eater compound; it waited until Dean Thomas was dead by Avery’s hand and the rest of their group had barely escaped with their lives. It waited until those who had gone on the raid were scattered across the countryside, until there was only a tall cathedral with disintegrating walls. Until there was only _alone,_ and time to reflect on how razor-thin the line between luck and strategy was. Blaise’s hands were climbing over Seamus’ face before he could stop them, striking out of fear and anger, caressing out of sheer need. He bit at Seamus’ lips, caught a moan in his mouth, and then suddenly he was shoved away so hard he staggered.

 _“Don’t,”_ Seamus hissed. When he had ceased to be Finnigan and become Seamus, Blaise had no idea. The distance between them burned him like torn tendons, stretching for wholeness again. Seamus sagged against the wall, hands white from gripping the bricks. He jammed his palm against his forehead, and Blaise understood the pain pounding through Seamus’ body. It was in him as well, a fierce ache telling him day in and day out that he was already caught, that he’d walked into some sort of snare and was only winding himself tighter in its tendrils.

“Seamus,” he whispered. He didn’t know whose sorrow he was feeling. The emotional tide rolled. “It’s a bond. I don’t know how—”

“Fucking shit.”

Unable to stop himself, Blaise reached out and touched Seamus’ bare forearm, and the force that danced through his fingertips was shocking and white and horrifically strong. Seamus gave a low moan and curled away from him.

“Why,” he whispered raggedly into the bricks. “Why, why, why, why…”

Blaise’s chest felt wrenched. As though he were bleeding out. Seamus’ words, the space between their bodies, all of it throbbed in places where he had no muscle, no sinew, _nothing that could ache, dammit,_ but it was aching.

“It’s old,” he managed. Seamus paid him no attention. His frame was heaving, deep, indrawn breaths. Blaise’s mouth moved again and words flowed out. “It’s not complete.”

“I can bloody well feel that,” Seamus hissed. Blaise moved as if pushed. The thought wasn’t even coherent before he was up against Seamus, and suddenly his whole body was reaching for it. Seamus inhaled sharply, arcing into him with a force that smacked of magic. Blaise reached up, struggling to breathe, and Seamus caught his wrist in a vise grip.

“I don’t want it finished, Zabini, do you hear me?” Seamus’ mouth was a sharp curve, honing the broken words. Even as his body sought closeness, he pushed Blaise away. Blaise’s head whirled at the motion and another shard lanced home in the ever growing hole inside him.

Seamus rubbed his face, turned his back. Blaise felt him collapsing just as surely as if he were the one falling. “Fuck you, Finnigan,” he ground out. “You think I wanted this? You think I bloody well wanted to feel it every time you got hurt, to have your damned nightmares every night? What if you die before this thing finishes? What happens to me?”

Seamus’ shoulders shuddered and Blaise _felt_ it happen. Something raw and helpless clotted up inside him. His mind threatened to topple. “I can’t… This isn’t _me_ anymore. It’s you.” He fought against the flood. “Why can’t you fucking finish it?” he said weakly. 

Seamus spun. Tears ran tracks down his cheeks.

“Because I know I’ll lose you to this war if we—”

Blaise dragged Seamus to him. Their kissing was so feverish it scared him. His knees gave out under the onslaught, and that evening by the dying fire, their bond, once a vague, physical flicker, became an absolute certainty. It was a mistake to do it, he was sure, because nothing in this torn and tattered world could possibly be guaranteed. Not Seamus’ hands on his body, not the dryness of his lips on his mouth, not the words whispered between them on breathless sighs. Words he would never tell another living soul. It was a mistake to try to cement something that couldn’t _be_ cemented. But Blaise didn’t care. Seamus was inside him now, his muscles, his blood.

The next day they were sent their separate ways, and Blaise first realised just how costly a blunder their accidental bonding would be. The chills at night shook him; every sound was a thunderous drum in his ears. He felt as though he’d swallowed something too large and it stuck there deep in his chest, sharp-edged. It was nothing but a stroke of luck that he did not run into any Death Eaters. 

He didn’t remember much of that week, only that somehow he’d completed whatever mission he was on. At night he heard Seamus’ heartbeat in his head, tugging his pulse into an ill-fitting tandem. _Shouldn’t be here,_ his dreams hissed, _shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be here, should be there, there, not here, there, where HE is, should be there, should be there—_

He might have spoken it aloud.

The days lengthened into hellish years, the nights into dry eternities. His body hurt as though he had lost a loved one; a craving unsatisfied, insatiable, and left to fester. 

The day he finally turned back toward Grimmauld Place, he could feel Seamus in his fingertips. Every step was experienced fully. His body hurt more, and yet grew stronger at the same time, until he opened the door ready to leap out of his skin, hands shaking so hard the knob rattled. He needed—needed to get somewhere, something, someone, and it wasn’t until he saw Seamus’ bloodshot eyes that he really thought of Seamus at all. It had only been himself those nights alone, what _he_ needed. It had never occurred to him to ponder what Seamus had gone through.

The instant he touched him, though, he knew. Oh gods, he knew.

“Don’t—Seamus—never, never again—”

“Never,” was all he heard. The rest sounded inside him where words didn’t matter.

Later, he counted it as a week of formation, when the bond was still fragile, for it never happened again quite like that.

* * *

Blaise shut one eye until Orion strode full into his vision. The silence pressed, but restfully. He knew Seamus was sleeping, somewhere.

Well. Let him sleep. Blaise could not gain that peace himself for the thoughts caroming through his head.

He had a week and a bit to finish, and the information of dead spies to launch from. It would get him north, and then it would get him to _them._ Death Eaters. He frowned at the stars. It was colder up north. Snow and ice, frozen lands with an even icier heart, because somewhere beneath the earth, they were there.

Why Voldemort should choose Scotland was not Blaise’s concern, and it didn’t trouble him. Scotland was ancient, full of magic that even the Dark Lord’s followers had never mastered. The very land vibrated with the power Druids had worshipped, so much so that the stir of a single man slipping under their watchful eyes might go undetected. 

Many had gotten in. Pansy had, before. But Blaise could count on a single hand those who had gotten back out.

He tried out a word in the stillness. Sound slithered from between his lips like scales over dry earth. Another word, and another. He would get no response tonight; it was much too cold. The language tasted sinewy in his mouth, and he spoke the words again, grateful for the perfection of intonation.

He’d worked hard for it, months ago. It was the only time he’d really gotten to know Potter, listening to the strange sentences flowing from his throat, copying the timbre and stress to memory. He still had no idea what he was saying, but Potter had taught him two sentences. Only two.

Blaise felt Seamus’ mind drift. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, then stared back up at the stars. Potter had vanished sometime after that, taking Lovegood and Moody with him, and it was then that Blaise knew the end, and his mission, was coming. Besides himself, only Moody and Potter knew where he was headed, and they were sequestered somewhere out of reach until he had accomplished his task. 

The last night with Seamus in the cathedral had been a quiet affair, full of whispers. No promises. Blaise couldn’t bring himself to say things that might not come true, and the gleam in Seamus’ eyes had told him that he understood.

Seamus had paused in the middle of it all, body warm and damp against his, with Blaise still trying to catch his breath, to relish the turmoil building inside of him. Seamus brushed a thumb over Blaise’s forehead. 

“It’s bad this time,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

Something lodged in Blaise’s throat. He might have spoken then, reassurances, a simple acknowledgement that Seamus’ mission was secret as well, and that he knew it. But Seamus moved again, pressing up, gripping his thigh with one hand, and Blaise’s words got lost in the rush of near-painful pleasure.

He had no idea where Seamus was tonight, only that he was safe and restful like the sky above. And Seamus had no idea where he was. They’d learned long ago that it was better that way. But even if they were in the habit of telling each other, Blaise wouldn’t have said anything this time. His mission was too important. Holding Seamus in his arms that last night, struggling to keep his moans soft and trying to tangle his hands further and further into sandy blond hair, he’d known how important it was, and how silent he had to be. 

But this? Heading ever northward alongside the freezing winds… this was a silence even he could not untangle. He had a very specific task, with specific information and specific training to fulfill it. He understood that, just as he understood the danger he was heading into. There was no other way to accomplish what he must. Blaise let the strange words glide over his tongue again and disappear into the night. But these words, this mission, was only a fragment of what was really going on, a piece to a larger puzzle.

He’d never been informed what the entire purpose of his task would be. That would have been grotesque foolishness on the part of Moody: should he be caught and tortured, everything would burn down around the ears of the Order, just as it had when Hogwarts had crumbled. But his piece of the puzzle seemed odd, even to him. Blaise chewed his lip, resting his head back in his hands. The grass crackled under him, sounding like more of Potter’s sibilant language.

In the entire scheme of things, what was the purpose behind killing a snake?

* * *

The sound of Luna’s lute kaleidoscoped off the window panes and echoed along the hallway. Harry rested a hand on the door before him and indulged himself in the tune for a moment, then entered the tiny room.

A fire already crackled in the fireplace in the west wall. The chamber had the cluttered feel of an rarely visited playroom. Harry slid a palm over the back of a lumpy chair before settling into it. The scent of lilacs burst from the cushions as he sat down. He cocked his head at the large portrait hanging on the wall in front of him.

“Good morning, sir.”

Albus Dumbledore shook himself awake and smiled brightly at Harry from the frame. He looked so odd, flattened and compartmentalised on the canvas. In two years, Harry had never been able to shake the sensation.

“Good morning, Harry.” The wizard’s eyes twinkled. “I see you have not thought to take advantage of the early hours, and have instead come to likewise roust me from my morning doze.”

“My apologies, sir. I don’t sleep late anymore, I’m afraid.”

Dumbledore nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. The taxation of thought does indeed make early risers of us all.”

Harry nodded. He drew a dingy caftan from the arm of the chair and spread it over his legs. “Do you… Do you ever get cold?”

Dumbledore looked at him peculiarly. “I am not entirely certain, Harry. One’s attention is taken up by so many other things.”

Harry shook his head, already regretting the question. He breathed in deeply, and the fire snapped at damp wood. Dumbledore’s beard was a tuft of snowy cotton, almost real enough. If he leaned forward, Harry thought he might be able to feel its texture.

So much did not change, even when so much else did.

“I hear you’ve been to see Luna.”

“Is that what I have been doing?” The old man looked thoughtful. “It would hardly be a waste of my time, now would it?”

Harry smiled. “She enjoys the company.”

Dumbledore lowered his head to peer over the tops of his spectacles. “Not nearly as much as she enjoys your company, I expect.”

The hollowness was rising already. Harry wondered if it had been wise to come to this room at all. “It’s… hard to tell with Luna.”

“My dear boy. Sometimes we must sit back and allow others to remind us of our worth. Especially when we ourselves have forgotten it.”

His mentor was smiling kindly—and knowingly—from the picture frame. Harry dropped his eyes, unable to keep the warmth from spreading to his expression. His lips curved upward on their own. “I’m sorry, sir. The castle’s very empty.”

“Indeed.” Dumbledore settled back and stroked his beard with one gnarled hand. He looked around, a quizzical expression suddenly on his face. “I’m sorry, Harry, I may have asked you this before, but… This is not my office, is it?”

And there was the old chill, creeping back in. Perhaps there was no longer a way to separate the two. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Sad business, Harry. Sad business.”

There was silence for a long while.

“Ms Lovegood tells me that events are moving forward at last.”

Harry straightened and pulled the caftan closer around his shoulders. “She thinks…” He sighed. “She thinks they’ll arrive within the week. Provided nothing happens.”

Dumbledore studied him. “It is the waiting that burdens.”

Harry shifted fitfully. “I just want to know they’re safe.”

“If I remember correctly, Ms Weasley was always quite skilled at getting herself out of trouble. Very like the rest of her family in that respect.”

“And Malfoy?”

Dumbledore folded his hands. Harry could still feel the familiar, impenetrable gaze of his former instructor, as if the man were flesh and blood sitting in the room next to him. “Ah, yes. Mr Malfoy.” He leaned forward slightly. “You regret his part in all of this?”

Harry looked away. “He was your choice.”

“I merely suggested him, Harry, if you’ll remember.” 

For a moment it did feel like the Headmaster’s office in Hogwarts, cramped with comfort, cluttered with the odds and knobs of indeterminate age and wisdom. It had been Dumbledore’s office, more so than McGonagall’s, and more than any of the headmasters and mistresses before him, Harry was willing to wager. Something in the stones of Hogwarts itself, something not present here, spoke of Dumbledore’s name, of his essence breathed into the life force of the school. Hogwarts _had_ been Dumbledore. Now, what was left?

Harry shook himself. Bother the school. He should be grateful they’d managed to save this portrait, at least, and stop wishing for what could not be.

“Harry.” Dumbledore’s voice broke into his thoughts and Harry looked up. “I do not recall you expressing concern over Mr Malfoy’s abilities. And I do not believe you are truly doing so now.”

“This isn’t his fight.”

“Draco Malfoy has fought many battles in his time, some not as wise or as crucial as others. But he has chosen all of them, as he has chosen this one.”

Harry knew Dumbledore was not speaking of merely bringing Ginny through the Death Eaters safely. The enormity of the larger choice, the entire war—hell, he himself had made it years ago—threatened to engulf him once again. He could only shake his head. Arguing with Dumbledore, especially over the intricacies, had never been an easy thing to do.

“She’s not going to be _his_ wife,” Harry whispered, mostly to himself.

Dumbledore did not speak for some time, and Harry wondered if there really was a need to speak at all. It had never hindered the old wizard’s ability to see straight into the heart of the matter. But how did that work when Harry couldn’t even extricate what the ‘heart of the matter’ was? He rubbed at his temples. It wasn’t Malfoy’s fight, and it wasn’t his journey, and yet Harry had been somehow unable to see that when the time came to select Ginny’s guide. 

It occurred to Harry that in a few days’ time, he and Draco Malfoy would once again be under the same roof. It felt monumental.

At Hogwarts, during school—that had been years ago. Six years of classes, cloaked in the rancor of what being under the same roof meant for both of them. But sixth year was not the last time they had dwelt in such close quarters, and he couldn’t compare their school years to this.

He had nothing tangible to insure it, but he knew that the night Malfoy finally stepped in out of the rain with Ginny at his side, it would be nothing like those years in the other castle. “I shouldn’t have asked this of him. Of them.”

“She will be a fine companion, Harry.”

“Yes, she will.” Before he knew it, he was sneering and he couldn’t stop. “For the week or so that I’m still alive afterward.”

Dumbledore said nothing. The fire crackled merrily and Harry glared at it. Two faces floated in front of his eyes. Hair the colour of flame. Eyes as grey as ash. Days from now, they would no longer be visions, but tangible beings in this very castle. Staring at him. Expecting something he wasn’t sure he could give.

Giving him what he certainly should not expect.

“Do you realise what this means? What will happen?” The words gritted from Harry’s throat atop the roiling in his gut. He could feel Dumbledore’s flat portrait eyes on him.

“I am asking her to marry me. But not only that. I’m asking her to… to—” Harry struggled, unable to find the right phrase. “To trust me.” The description fell woefully short of the mess in his mind.

“She already does.”

“And what of the times she trusted me before? What did it get her? What did it get _him?”_ He tried to focus. “Ginny’s family… They’ve been carved away from her one way or another, one by one, because of me. Somehow, every time, because of me. First Percy… Then Molly left—and—and then—” He broke off; couldn’t say the name. “Now she’ll just come to me and give even more. She might not even be herself after this! And Malfoy—”

But there, he simply could not go. Malfoy’s losses still sang eerily in his dreams at night. He shook his head and stopped talking. Words were the poorest of threads for such a tapestry, and yet, he’d been weaving this one all his life.

“Harry.”

A shiver passed through him at the hush of Dumbledore’s voice.

“You cannot remain there forever. You cannot remain at Hogwarts, and you cannot lose yourself in either Ms Weasley’s or Mr Malfoy’s troubles. They were not your fault, as much as you may view them as such. The violence of this storm sucks many down, and we must all do our best to hold tight to those it seeks. But sometimes the storm will have its way. The first drop of rain is no more responsible for the flood than the last. It has been years coming and not everyone will weather it.”

“Maybe I’m the dam that broke,” Harry said.

“My boy, you are the ancient tree rising above the torrent.”

He stared past the fire into nothingness. “With everyone clinging to my branches?”

Dumbledore’s nod was more resounding than anything he could have said aloud. A peculiar heaviness settled in Harry’s chest. Ginny was already on her way, toward a future she would probably leap into with nothing except his presence to guide her. And Malfoy had long been tangled in the webbing of this mess already, through no fault of his own.

For one crystal clear instant, Harry was certain that all the ghosts clung to his branches as well.

“I can’t ask this of them.”

“You already have,” Dumbledore said sternly.

“I shouldn’t be able to do that! I shouldn’t have that kind of power.”

“Should, shouldn’t.” The old wizard considered him somberly. “It is all relative, Harry. What _should be_ has always been in a sense irrelevant, a mere consequence of one’s desires.” He leaned closer. “Power has many facets, Harry. It takes every form. You have seen the power of fear and of deceit. Of loss. They are indeed substantial, and treacherous. But it is when that power is given over freely by others, and not taken from them, that it becomes the strongest.”

Harry felt the heaviness as if the words thudded over his own tongue. “And what about what they’ve lost already?”

“They have indeed sacrificed. They will continue to sacrifice, as will you. Perhaps you should not have this power, as you say, to make them sacrifice what they love for you and for this. But you _do_ have this power, Harry. Should or should not… You have it. They have given it to you.”

“What if I don’t want it?” A whisper. Dumbledore’s silence felt like judgment sitting upon his head, and Harry could not bear the thought of such an ultimatum from one he had esteemed—loved—so intensely. He drew in a quick breath, his lip curling. “I suppose now it’s time for me to gracefully accept. A speech about using my power for good?”

“Why would I repeat something so obvious?” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. 

“I do wish you wouldn’t keep doing that,” Harry breathed out, a faint smile on his lips.

“Why, whatever do you mean, my boy?”

They chatted for a while afterward, and the morning stretched on. The fire had burnt down to the coals and the room was enfolded in a lazy heat when Luna voice at last gave way to the harp alone. Dumbledore dozed comfortably in his painted armchair. Harry’s thoughts began to sway, blown about by a wayward breeze. 

As they had done often enough during the past weeks, they once again alighted on Draco Malfoy.

It had been months since Harry had seen his former schoolmate. He could picture every tiny worry-line marring that pale skin, every downward twitch of Malfoy’s lips as if the man were cast in a portrait alongside Dumbledore. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever seen that face without the lines, or that mouth shaped into anything but a twist. Merlin knew there had been little enough to warrant any other expression. Years ago, perhaps, Malfoy had smirked, even smiled. But it seemed a dream. Everything, from the moment Draco Malfoy had stepped back into Harry’s life, dragging his loss into the light behind him, seemed like a dream.

But Malfoy’s most recent loss was especially hard to stomach.

Harry sighed and rubbed at his knuckles. It was not his business; doubtless Malfoy would take offense should he even approach the subject. Harry had wondered at his own sanity when he first realised that he longed for that inevitable fight, the jarring punches, the splintering pain, the rage that left perfect numbness in its wake. Was that release for him, or for Malfoy? And what right had he to speak to Draco Malfoy about this, of all things? He had no right. Theodore Nott had been Malfoy’s friend long before there was more to it, years before the possibility of pain became the loss of a lover. Even had Malfoy and Nott parted as friends, Harry would not have had the right to ask. As lovers… well, it was a warm, tight, private place that Harry had no business being near. But he couldn’t escape it. It felt very important that he acknowledge Theodore Nott’s death to Malfoy. 

He wanted to be able to quantify the loss, and yet it felt blasphemous to try. Draco was not the only person to have lost someone. But it was the breaking caused by that sort of loss that made Harry want to howl inside. He had seen Malfoy stretched to breaking, more than once. And then he had seen him… break.

Harry had seen Malfoy snap apart a total of three times in the years they’d known each other, and witnessed what resulted from each. As cowardly as it was, he was terribly glad he had not been in the forest that day to witness Nott’s death in Malfoy’s arms. Malfoy must have broken yet again, there in the rain. Harry had watched him at the funeral for long enough to see the ragged threads behind his eyes.

Draco Malfoy did not _break,_ it simply didn’t happen. Harry didn’t think he could watch it again. It would be like seeing Dumbledore die a second time. All that potential with a limit suddenly slapped onto it, boundaries erected where there should be none.

Harry was beginning to see that magical bonds were surprisingly easy to forge, and that they didn’t always break when the magic that had fashioned them did.

To lose someone like that was unimaginable. It was what Hermione had lost, what Harry had thus far been lucky enough to avoid. The agony that had wrenched itself from Hermione’s lungs last Christmas, the weeks it had taken her to come out of her room at Grimmauld, to stop shaking… Draco Malfoy had suffered that same loss in silence.

Was Harry courting such a loss? Ginny was on her way, with every intention, as far as he knew, of going through with the spell. Their bond would not only be spiritual, it would be tempered by the oldest linking spell he had ever heard of, set to aid in the defeat of the most powerful enemy anyone had faced in centuries. It would bring Ginny and him together in such a way that the idea woke Harry in the middle of the night with his knuckles white from clutching at his sheets. He had read through the spells over and over, committed them to memory and then shoved them from the dreams they invaded. Should the two of them be ripped apart after undertaking such a fearsome binding… Harry’s body physically hurt from the implications. 

“Can’t even just _be_ with someone anymore,” he muttered into the quiet room. The war had decimated that fiction long ago.

The absolute necessity of the thing gripped him. He’d never thought they would all reach the end of their long, long rope, but this was it. This was the only solution left. A spell of such magnitude that the people involved were all secondary. Their last hope lay, of all things, in a marriage. A loneliness scratched at his heart. He and Ginny would give everyone hope, or so it went. Something to sustain them all. But the thing that really kept everyone going was so fragile, so easily shattered. A few souls already taxed to their limits.

Perhaps it was a need to know that Malfoy was not alone and to see that _Malfoy_ knew it. Maybe that was why he wanted to talk to him about Nott.

Or maybe it was to know that he, Harry, was not alone.

Abruptly, it was too hard to think of Draco Malfoy. He felt as though Nott were standing over his shoulder, clinging to his branches. He’d hardly even known the man. Harry sought for Ginny’s face in his mind instead. He spun her out like silk: fiery strands of hair, the smatter of freckles, and the smile he remembered, the one that flickered like light and shone like gold. His heartbeat slowed. The room filled with stillness and the strains of Luna’s voice rising in another song, and if he thought about it hard enough, he could almost smell Ginny’s rose perfume.

She would do this willingly. She was at the heart of his fondest memories. The thought of her tugged him back to a jumbled kitchen full of delicious smells, a ramshackle home that held laughter, red hair, and the shelter of motherly arms. Ginny was life; she was like all the Weasleys. Her vibrancy stood out to him in the small room, and the sharp cut of the notes Luna sang echoed the fierceness Ginny’s memory evoked. For a moment Harry pictured, and listened.

_Oh, it’s down where yon waters run muddy.  
I’m afraid they will never run clear,  
And it’s when I begin for to study,  
My mind is on him that’s not here._

“At least I can do one thing right.” Harry glanced away from the fire and found the room to be too cramped. There were ghosts here too, and not just in the forgotten portraits stacked against the walls. He rose from his chair quietly, one eye on the Headmaster’s dozing form, and left the room. Sunlight poured into the corridors through mullioned windows, and he could almost see Ginny there in the pools of light, as carefree as she had been during his sixth year. How could he have known that his attempt to keep her safe—far away from him—would end up in this odd finale? Keeping her close, it seemed, had been the answer all along.

It was for the best. And he’d made a promise to his best friend.

The sorrow in Luna’s song thrummed through him, and Harry stopped dead in the hallway, clenching his fist. 

No. No, this wasn’t what he had promised Ron. This was ancient, dangerous magic, this was the strangest of marriages, and no matter how he tried to twist it to quiet his nightmares, he was not protecting Ginny. He was using her. She was coming at his request, into safety, and he was giving her nothing but a place to stand for the final fall: right beside him in front of Voldemort’s wand.

He was betraying Ron.

Harry’s willpower, long stretched on a fraying tether, gave way at last. All the stubbornness in the world could not hold him intact against the unraveling. He dropped to the floor, his head in his hands, and began to cry.

_Here’s a health to you, bonny Kellswater,  
Where you get all the pleasures of life,  
Where you get all the fishing and fowling  
And a bonny wee lass for your wife._


	5. Weasel and Ferret

**originally posted 3/1/07**

 

On 17 January, 1999, the Death Eaters of Britain launched what was to be the final attack on St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The wards, damaged by four preceding attacks, failed for good at 4:10 am, allowing twenty-eight Death Eaters access to the lower levels. With the anti-Apparition wards down, the first two floors were overrun within moments. Several Healers took a stand lasting a little over an hour on the third floor, but were eventually overcome. Patients hiding on the fourth and fifth floors were massacred, including five suspected Death Eaters who had been brought in under Ministry guard a week prior. By the end of the attack, thirty-five employees, patients, and Aurors had been killed, with fifty-two critically wounded. Those who could be evacuated were removed to what safe locations could be found. The exact number of Death Eater casualties is unknown, but estimates range from ten to fifteen wounded, seven to ten dead.

Due to the destruction of St. Mungo’s, all documented Wizarding medical aid ceased in London. Supplies dwindled, and trained Healers became a valuable commodity on both sides of the conflict, resulting in multiple abductions. Those who escaped the Death Eaters fled into what protection the Order could provide.

~

What little sunlight there was gleamed weakly through the mass of tree branches, dappling over the ground in odd, watery ripples. Ginny tucked her cloak about her shoulders, trying to keep her eyes open. The wool was damp and heavy. Every few minutes, the wind wafted a musty smell into her nostrils. She blinked rapidly and rubbed her hands together; she’d always had poor circulation in her extremities. Her cold hands had been something nearly everyone had complained about at one point or another. She could still remember Dean Thomas’ laughter as, even on a summer evening in fourth year, he’d tucked her hands into a jacket he felt it was much too hot for her to be wearing anyway.

Ginny’s head ached. She rummaged around in her pack until she found the bag of granola crumpled at the bottom. Must she always sink herself into such dire thoughts? Dean was not who she wanted to remember at the moment. It still felt odd, the knowledge that he was not just gone, but _gone_ —someone she’d dated back in the hazy days of school. She could barely remember those days without the sense of looking in on someone else’s life. A girl in a picture book, perhaps. Not her life. Her life was full of deceased ex-boyfriends and a family split all to hell.

And wasn’t that an appropriately cheerful tangent to veer off on?

Before she knew what she was doing, she opened her mouth. “Have you got any water?”

Draco Malfoy looked up slowly from across the clearing, eyes hooded. Well, perhaps ‘across the clearing’ was too generous: his legs were practically touching hers, even with his back against the furthest tree. Ginny met his empty gaze and fought the urge to fidget. She pursed her lips. “Well, have you?”

Without a word, Malfoy reached down and tossed her the aged canteen that had been leaning against his thigh. She caught it. Flicked her eyes to his. Chastised herself for being a fool and opened the cap. Draco Malfoy poisoning her with canteen water during their great escape… She could not make the idea sound anything but ludicrous. She took a long sip and was surprised at the sweet taste. She’d been thirstier than she realised.

With a mumbled thanks, Ginny passed the canteen back and watched Malfoy take a drink of his own. An absurd thought fluttered: she was sharing a beverage with Malfoy. Without individual straws, even.

Ginny cleared her throat. “How long till we get there?”

She didn’t expect him to answer. But he surprised her with a ready reply. 

“Three days. Give or take.”

She ate a handful of granola. It had gone stale already. Damn this weather. It sucked the taste out of everything.

Except water, apparently.

“And how will you know when we’re there?” she asked, aimless annoyance making her words tart.

This time, she recognised the flicker of disdain when he looked at her. It must be bred in a Malfoy from birth; their faces probably just twisted like that without their control, as natural as smiling. 

“Anxious to see Harry again?” he said, lips thin.

Ginny felt her expression sink into something distasteful. “Since when is he Harry?”

The look Malfoy gave her could have chipped ice. His eyes flicked over her face briefly. “Since I decided it would make _you_ more comfortable.”

“My comfort is a top priority?”

A sneer finally curled Malfoy’s mouth, but it looked unfamiliar and cold. He spread his hands accommodatingly. “We guardians specialise in several fields now, Weasley.”

“It’s nice to know you’ve changed,” she muttered, and immediately wished she hadn’t, for more reasons than she could have predicted.

She shivered and drew her cloak closer. Bother it all; she didn’t want to be talking to Draco Malfoy. Merlin knew she was probably the last one to feel this way. Even Harry seemed to be on speaking terms with this man, and that was a considerable feat.

But she could feel sleep tugging. She arched, stretching her back. Talking at least would keep her from keeling over for a time. “The place is shielded,” she stated without a lead-in. “I’ve heard even Moody wouldn’t be able to find his way back in if he stepped out the front door.” And then she realised she hadn’t a clue what kind of building she was talking about. “It does have a front door, doesn’t it?”

Malfoy studied her a little too frankly. “It’s a castle,” he said silkily. “There could even be a portcullis.”

Oddly enough, the contempt in his voice made her relax. _Familiarity._ It was rather funny. Something to be said for not changing things too much. “And I _suppose_ you’ll just get a feeling in your bones when we get close enough?”

“You would be more apt to answer that.” 

Ginny smirked. “Alright.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Luna will call us. That’s what Blaise told me.”

Malfoy’s eyes flickered and Ginny wondered what she’d said. Was this something he already knew? Something he’d been completely unaware of? And then Ginny wondered if maybe the issue of distrust went two ways. It was interesting, the swing in her guts as she considered that Malfoy might be thinking of the danger she posed to him as well. 

“Did he, indeed?” Malfoy’s lips tightened, and suddenly Ginny understood. She’d said Blaise’s first name. Naturally.

Why should she feel weird about that? But she did. Blaise Zabini, and she was at the point of calling him by his first name. It no longer bothered her at all. Obviously it did bother Malfoy. Ginny took another handful of granola and chewed uneasily. And why not? Gods, it made her impotently furious just to think that Harry, perhaps even Seamus and Hermione, now called Malfoy by his first name. She had no idea if they did or not, but the thought of such a drastic upheaval… 

She shook herself. Here, she had just confirmed to Malfoy that she, a Gryffindor and a Weasley, was close to his oldest living friend. It just wasn’t the way things worked. Merlin, she hated this war.

“Do you…” She struggled to find a proper segue, not sure why it was important to give Malfoy this moment. “What exactly is the spell Luna’s using?”

Malfoy just looked at her, and Ginny sighed and glared at him. “I know it came out of your books. No other family would have hoarded something that old.”

The tiniest of smirks passed over the man’s face. “It’s ancient. Greek. She has utter control. If she wanted to, she could hide the castle from herself.”

“How?” The word came out on a current of disbelief before she could stop it. 

Malfoy took another drink. “She sacrificed something for the spell. Maybe her life, as she knew it.”

A sick feeling twisted Ginny’s gut. “How on earth do you know that?”

“Nothing that powerful is free.” Malfoy stopped, obviously considering the question answered. Ginny continued to glare at him, until he finally glowered back. “I’ve no idea, Weasley. If I knew the details, wouldn’t I have taken them to Voldemort long ago?”

His tone was caustic. Ginny scowled and tucked her cloak around her hands. “I wouldn’t know, would I?” she shot back.

Malfoy met her smile with an eerie quirk to his own. “It’s a Siren’s Ward. Even if I did go to Voldemort, it wouldn’t do them any good. I don’t think there’s a spell in existence that can break through that ward once it’s set, unless Lovegood wishes it.”

She’d never heard of a Siren’s Ward, but the name sent a new chill through her limbs. She knew what sirens were, after all; the image of the creature had always evoked frightened fascination, as far back as she could remember. Like a vampire, or a harpy. Old monsters, from a time before human beings could speak well enough to give them names.

“It sounds like something your family would know about,” she muttered. Malfoy eyed her with cold amusement for a long moment, and then reached for his pack. Ginny watched as he undid the buckle and searched around. What he finally pulled from the depths was her new wand.

“Well, perhaps you can answer a few of my questions, then,” he said. “Concerning something your family would know so much about.”

Ginny felt her hackles rising. She readied herself for a crack about Ron—that would be unforgivable and she’d maul him right here in this clearing if he so much as spoke her brother’s name. It was a subject Malfoy had never, ever been able to stay away from.

“This is not yours,” he said, flicking the wand between his fingers. 

Ginny paused. It wasn’t what she’d expected. But it certainly didn’t preclude some insult further down the line. “What about it?”

“Who has yours, if I might ask?” Condescending.

Heroism was his topic, then, she supposed. Maybe heroism was something her family knew a lot about. Too much for their own good. It had scattered them all, and it was the reason that she had no concrete idea how much of a family she still had left. “What month is it?”

Malfoy’s face was impassive. “April.”

“Then Hannah Abbott has it. Or did a few days ago.” Wherever it was, her real wand was a long ways away. She hadn’t felt the prickle of her own magical aura in weeks.

“And if not Abbott?”

“Why does it matter?”

Malfoy snorted. “Granger then.”

“Yes,” Ginny allowed. 

“Amazing what people will do to keep you safe.” He studied her fixedly, and Ginny heard scorn in the words. She sensed the smug expression hiding under his deadpan and wanted to smack it away.

“I didn’t ask them to do it, you know. Sometimes people do things for others out of the goodness of their hearts. Or because there’s nothing else to be done. Who are you to trivialise what they’re doing? They’re risking their lives, and they’re helping you, too.”

Something like surprise echoed in Malfoy’s eyes, and in a long, incandescent instant, Ginny understood her mistake. His statement had not been directed at her alone, but at a more general fact of life.

Her thoughts swung back to Blaise, other names and faces she’d tried to put to rest long ago. Yes, Hermione was out there wielding her wand somewhere, drawing Death Eaters toward her like a trail of blood through an ocean full of sharks. As was Hannah. Seamus, though without her wand. Countless other names. 

Blaise. Months ago, Nott. And a year ago, Parkinson.

Tight pain coiled in Ginny’s chest. It was an old wound, with little rips and tears from innumerable sources. A razed castle, a night full of fire instead of holiday cheer. A family broken in half. Dead faces she didn’t want to see anymore, though her dreams supplied the images every night. And the pain of waiting, of not _knowing,_ only to be struck down by the truth later.

She remembered the white-washed walls of St. Mungo’s last Christmas. Standing out in the hall, on legs leaden with as-yet untapped grief, and seeing yet another haunting tableau in the next room: the instantly recognisable blond hair of Draco Malfoy, bent over the bed of a girl Ginny had never thought twice about, except to belittle her shrieking laughter and upturned nose.

Pansy Parkinson never woke up, and Malfoy sat there clutching her hand between whitened fingers until she finally ceased to breathe. Or so Ginny had heard later; she’d had her own share of grief that night, holding vigil over an empty bed. The person who should have been in it shared her fiery hair. What she remembered most clearly of that night was not the brother she had lost, however; it was the snow-white pallor of Pansy Parkinson’s skin, the dark smudges under her eyes, and the red edges of Malfoy’s. The rattle of breath, and the half-healed marks marring Parkinson’s visible flesh.

It had been Ginny’s final notice that her childishness had no place there anymore, and it had hit hard. As if the death of her youngest brother had not smacked her senseless already. Still, she’d been able to hope, she’d had that ability, until they taken the room away from them, gave to someone they’d actually been able to find, and Hermione passed out on the floor right in front of her.

But the image of Draco Malfoy squeezing Pansy Parkinson’s hand had burned itself into her memory so deeply that she could see it against the trees. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism, a method of forgetting why she had really ended up at St. Mungo’s that Christmas Eve.

After St. Mungo’s itself had been destroyed, it was the only method of coping she had left.

When she looked up, Ginny found that Malfoy was still staring at her. The surprise had deserted his face, and in its place was something calculating. Washed clean. Ginny hunched, ashamed of her recent rash words. It made her angry; Malfoy’d had six years to feel ashamed and had never done so, at least not concerning his behavior toward her family. Still, there were some lines that one just didn’t cross, no matter who one was speaking to. She’d somehow blundered over one, and bloody hell if it didn’t make her feel like apologising to the prat.

“So. Three days,” she muttered instead. Malfoy didn’t answer. Just took a swig of water. As far as Ginny could tell, the conversation, or what was passing for one, was over. But the weariness had not yet faded and it was nowhere near dark yet. The clearing was dim, what light there was barely making its way through the tangled tree trunks. Directly overhead, the sky was still bright. The cloud cover glowed as though the sun were melting its way through.

“Luna will call us,” she tried. “When it’s time.”

This time she could see the debate within Malfoy over whether to speak or not. At last he gave in. “How will we know?”

Ginny shrugged one shoulder. “Seamus just said we would. We’d just—know.”

“Not exactly reassuring,” Malfoy said under his breath.

It wasn’t, confound it, but Ginny was just feeling petulant now. Her head was beginning to pound and her stomach rumbled in annoyance at nothing but stale granola. She turned her glare on the man across from her. “What? Now you don’t trust Luna?”

Malfoy managed a sneer. “I’ve no reason to distrust her, Weasley.” He spread his hands. Ginny was vaguely surprised to see calluses on his palms. “Why in Merlin’s name would she let me stay outside and rot? I’ll have brought you to them, won’t I?”

Ginny bristled at the flatness in his voice, and struggled to calm herself. He was right. He was always fucking right. The git. If he were going to turn her over to Voldemort, he would have done it already, and if he were planning some special betrayal for later, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Luna wouldn’t just let them run around in circles outside the hidden… fortress? They needed her. Harry needed her.

A trickle of warmth broke through her melancholy. Harry appeared in her mind, not as a face, but as a voice. A scent. The cologne he’d used in his sixth year… deep, intoxicating laughter that made her shiver even now. It had been much too long since she’d last seen him; the circumstances had not been that good—were they ever?—and she’d left the encounter happy, but deprived of something she couldn’t put her finger on. Now she realised that, no matter how many resolutions she’d made for a friendship between them, she would never be able to keep them. She already wanted more. What they’d had, or as close to it as they could get. He was miles away and she could already feel him tingling in her blood. She tightened her grip on her cloak. When had she become so focussed on this? She had no idea, and yet it was there all the same.

She flexed cold fingers under her cloak and fancied she could still feel the texture of Harry’s wild hair drifting between them.

“Harry—” She took a breath and tried to speak calmly. “Harry will be thankful, too, Malfoy. This spell.” She caught his eye. “It’s difficult. Everything you’ve done, bringing me, risking your life… He’ll be grateful.”

But the attempt at a smile faded on her lips. Malfoy’s face had paled: bloodless cheeks under darkening eyes. Ginny was caught in a tidal glare that stole all her words. With a jerk, Malfoy looked away.

“Of course he will, Weasley,” was all he said.

It began to rain. Ginny sat, stupefied, the raindrops pattering down on her already sodden hair. Fuck it all. What was he angry with Harry for now? Maybe he was angry with her again. They’d never gotten along and she was somehow supposed to think that a couple of nights on the run in each other’s company was going to cure all that? And since when did she care about ‘curing’ it at all? Never.

She rubbed her forehead. Thought about sleep. “Fucking rain.”

Malfoy said nothing, but she saw him draw his cloak more tightly around himself. The rain fell, flattening his hair to his head. Ginny wondered absurdly how the two of them must look. If someone were to walk into the clearing right at that moment—

“Have you—felt anything? Anyone.” Ginny grimaced at her own voice.

Malfoy shifted once. “No. If they’re around, they’re not using magic.”

“They’re around,” she muttered, earning herself more scrutiny. It was no use pretending. The glass hadn’t been half full for some years now, and Ginny was no fool. “When Harry talked about them… Well.” She felt silly, babbling on as if Malfoy cared. “He was so young when they first targeted him. I never really thought about it. But he did well.”

She felt the words bubbling up from some secret spring in her chest, out of control, as if she would talk and talk, faster and faster until she exploded. “He could fight them even then. He was always gifted.”

No answer from Malfoy. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, but rather at his hands. Listening. At that moment, there was no Death Eater’s hood that could take the innocence, the passivity he exuded, though she had wondered from time to time if he’d ever really donned such a hood.

“I certainly can’t say I envy Harry, though,” Ginny said, shivering from more than the cold.

Malfoy’s eyes flew to hers, wide in their incredulity. “Envy?” His voice was colder than the rain, laced with contempt as thick as arsenic. “You don’t _envy_ Harry?”

Ginny swallowed, met his gaze. Draco crawled toward her, and leaned in until the grey of his irises was all she could see. They sparked fitfully. His fingers pressed into the ground near her knee.

“You are wanted by every Death Eater in existence,” he hissed. His breath was hot on her face. “Do you know what that means?”

The clearing almost echoed with the raindrops. Ginny stared into Malfoy’s eyes and nodded.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“No. I don’t think you do.” He sneered again and backed off. There was an age in his face that didn’t belong, shoved on him without his permission, and beneath it, the mockery she knew far better. The fact that he might be right, that he of all people knew what it was like to be hunted, turned Ginny’s stomach. Before she knew it, she was furious.

“You’ve no idea what’s happened to me,” she gritted out. “You’ve no fucking idea.”

“But I do know what hasn’t happened to you.”

“Of course. Because we haven’t all experienced the wonders and trials of being part of Voldemort’s most loathed family, we can’t understand what it’s like to suffer!”

Malfoy’s smirk became a snarl. “Oh, I don’t know, Weasley. As far as Voldemort is concerned, your family is right up there with mine. Blood traitors.”

“You have to be a traitor to be a blood traitor, Malfoy,” she spat.

Malfoy’s anger tore through the last of his walls. Suddenly he was no longer a surly child, but an infuriated man. “Fuck off, Weaslette.”

“You haven’t got a monopoly on suffering, you know. And all your whinging will never get you sympathy. Not now, not anymore!”

“You’re the only one who still needs that sympathy,” Malfoy bit out. “The rest of us have matured enough to get by on our own.”

“Being tossed headlong into maturity is not the same thing as maturing, Malfoy. Just so you know.” 

With that, Ginny turned away and buried her head in her cloak, fuming. How dare he? She stifled the almost irresistible urge to leap up and throttle him. But in the end, it wasn’t all that hard; she knew that somewhere back there, she had lost the rightness of it all and had settled for disparaging him instead. Like some sort of bully. And that, as legitimate as her words might be, he was also at least partially in the right.


	6. Houses of Our Fathers

**originally posted 3/12/07**

 

On the night of 20th November, 1997, Draco Malfoy arrived at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

~

**Grimmauld Place, 1997**

Harry heard the shouts from the dining room and stood slowly. It was too late for this. He picked up his wand, soup forgotten on the table, and stalked to the door, thinking it was Molly, maybe one or both of the twins, or Mundungus Fletcher. But before he even reached the door, Harry knew it wouldn’t matter who he saw having it out in the hallway. He ached all over. The night had been hellish, there were people trying to sleep upstairs, people who had damn well earned the little rest they would be able to get, and this was his house, for fuck’s sake. Remus was attempting to recover from his latest transformation. The thought of how the noise must be affecting the battered man drove a spike of fury through Harry’s head. The doors were already rattling when he reached them, and he would have grabbed them and thrown them open if not for the sudden recognition of a voice that he hadn’t heard in half a year.

Harry froze in place. But the voices escalated, one shouting particularly violent barbs. Harry found his legs and lunged forward, shoving through the double doors.

Dean Thomas stood in the centre of the hallway, his wand arm extended, but it was Katie Bell who was yelling, her face white with rage, at none other than Draco Malfoy. Jack Sloper stood behind him, an ugly look on his face, wand jabbing into Malfoy’s back. Tonks was off to one side, her wide eyes fixed on her cousin as if she could not quite believe what she… No, she was horrified. There was a sorrow on her face that Harry had never seen, not even during her morose periods. Her wand hung useless at her side, but that hardly mattered with the other three wands shoved into Malfoy’s throat and chest.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Katie screamed, features so twisted Harry barely recognised her. “You’re not leaving this place alive, you murderer!”

In the time it took for Katie to say the words, Harry saw that Malfoy did not have his wand—it was in Dean’s hand—and his cloak was ragged at the edges. He stood with thin hands raised, hair brushed back from his face as if he had tried, but failed, to retain his old habits. It was the expression Malfoy wore that caught Harry, however. The narrow features he remembered so well were hollowed out. Years had carved their way into Malfoy’s face. He held steady, eyes half-closed, but he wasn’t looking at anything. The grey irises were glassy. 

Draco Malfoy already looked defeated.

“I ought to break your wand, you filthy piece of—”

 _“Stop,”_ Harry snarled.

All of them spun to look at him, except for Malfoy. His reaction was more puzzling. He twitched and blinked, and then raised his eyes slowly to Harry’s. There was surprise there, a sign of life, but it was barely present. Harry frowned. It was as though Malfoy had not actually expected him to be there when he looked up.

“Harry,” Katie said, breathing hard. Her eyes shot fire at Malfoy. _“This_ has just arrived at the door. I’ve no idea how he found the house. He could have led them straight here. We should—”

“They don’t know,” Malfoy murmured, staring past Harry to the wall. Sloper growled.

“Shut it if you know what’s good f—”

“Shut up!” Harry shouted. Again, everyone’s attention fixed upon him. In her corner, Tonks fidgeted but remained silent. Harry turned his attention to Malfoy. “What are you doing here?”

Malfoy looked back out of weary eyes. “Sanctuarium.”

Katie jabbed her wand into his throat. “Say that again and I’ll—”

Harry’d had enough. “You’ll what, Bell? Kill him?”

Katie stared at him. Harry ground his teeth. He whipped back to Malfoy. “Why are you here? What possible reason?”

Malfoy swayed, and Tonks gave a low murmur. Malfoy touched a hand to his forehead. His eyes drifted. “I have something… to ask you. Potter.”

His voice was hoarse. Harry fought the instinctive flinch. This was not the Malfoy he remembered at all. “What is it?”

Malfoy looked around once and then at Harry again. “In private. Please.”

The last word held an edge of desperation. Harry was caught in the wholly unfamiliar glint to Malfoy’s eyes. But the moment shattered suddenly and painfully; Katie’s wand jammed into Malfoy’s throat. 

“Think we’re stupid, do you? We’ll let you alone with him, that’s what we’ll do. You’ll just march in here after what you—”

Harry slammed his hand flat on the glass cabinet just outside the doorway. _“Katie._ If he’s here to get us all killed, how the fuck do you think he got in?”

The entire hallway fell silent, save for heaving breaths. Betrayal warring with almost insurmountable anger on Katie’s face. But Harry was finished with it all. He turned to the others.

“He came in here brandishing his wand, did he? Just walked right up and spelled the door—that door—open?”

Dean’s brow furrowed. He studied Malfoy’s wand for a moment. “No.” He slapped the wand into Harry’s outstretched palm. “Gave it over as soon as he saw us.”

“Wards,” Harry hissed. His anger felt horribly compounded: frustration, exhaustion, exasperation. Annoyance above all, at Dean for letting Katie blow her top as if they were sixth years dueling instead of wielding the power to kill someone with a word. At Tonks for sitting there like a bloody statue the entire time. At Malfoy for thinking he could just walk up to the fucking front door, safe as you please. “Do I have to wake Hermione after her first two hours of sleep in as many days so that you can all be reminded of _how these particular wards work?”_

As if on cue, a door in the darkness upstairs banged shut. All eyes shot to the stairwell, its top lost in shadows. All except Harry’s and Malfoy’s. Harry stared at the new arrival. 

Malfoy stared at nothing.

Katie was still fuming, Harry could see it. But Dean looked mollified enough to keep silent. Harry watched a shudder twist its way through his frame, and was relieved that his old roommate was there. 

“Doesn’t explain how he found us.” Jack Sloper, contemptuous. His wand was still out, held firmly in his left hand, and Harry felt ill with irritation. Sloper did not belong behind a wand. He acted like a petulant child too often for Harry’s taste.

“And it does not negate the fact that he could _not_ have found us unless his intentions were peaceful, Sloper.”

Sloper’s wand dropped a touch, but Katie picked up the slack. 

“Well then, _what_ is he fucking doing here?” Her fingers twitched, as if calling up inherent magic. Harry felt battered by waves on either side.

He at last allowed himself to study Malfoy, to scrutinise his vacant stare, to take in the robes now on the edge of ruin. He pictured the old sneer pasted onto those bedraggled features, and at last felt cool distance sweep over him. A necklace, curled between gloved hands? A cabinet door, damp with age and squealing open. A shaking wand under acid green and starlight.

He looked Malfoy up and down. “I intend to find out.”

* * *

They followed him into the dining room, but in the end, it was Dean who removed Katie from Malfoy’s vicinity, guiding her up the stairs with a hand on her shoulder. Harry could hear her spitting angry responses to his low tones as they receded into the darkness. He turned from Sloper, not caring for the sullen twist of his features.

“Tonks, has he been checked?”

She nodded, her focus now narrowed on her silent cousin. “He’s barely got the clothes on his back. No tracers. No Portkeys. There’s nothing magical on him except the wand.”

Harry tossed it to her, past Malfoy’s face. Grey eyes flickered briefly to follow its arc. “Spell it. For my magical signature only.”

Tonks fingered the wand and nodded again. Sloper stirred. 

“You’re just going to let him in? Like he’s some sort of ally?”

“Get out.”

Sloper glared, but ultimately stalked from the room, whispering something to Tonks as he passed. For her part, the Metamorphmagus remained in the doorway. But her eyes were still clouded with sorrow. “Harry… Can’t let you alone with him. Not without—”

He pushed Malfoy backward and the man fell into a chair, legs sprawled, staring up at him. Tonks’ words died, and in the silence, Harry cast a binding spell on Malfoy’s body. Malfoy didn’t even flinch. 

“Tonks.”

He felt her nod. She shut the door behind her with a sharp scrape. Her last word.

Malfoy was watching him, looking wounded in the flickering light. But Harry cast one spell, then another, checking for magical traces. He took his time, sorting through the conflicting auras—faint, but not unfamiliar. Malfoy. Old magic. Something darker. He’d felt it from Death Eaters before, a frail wisp of a putrid and black thing, not completely cleaned away. The object of his attention did nothing to stop him, nor did he attempt to speak. He simply sat, staring straight ahead, dirty fingers curling around each armrest. There was a weak blush on his cheeks and Harry paused, wondering about shame.

Finally he stood back, and Malfoy dragged his eyes to meet his. 

“What do you want?”

The flush deepened, then drained away. Apparently even shame could not be bothered with. “I need your help.” 

“Is that so.”

Nothing but a simple nod. Harry was struck all over again by how mussed Malfoy was. His hair was limp, oily, hanging about his face like an afterthought. There was a tremor to his body that had never been there. A slight but steady quiver in the muscles of his hands. Harry leaned over, a foot from Malfoy’s face. “What could I possibly help you with?”

Malfoy’s mouth worked, over and over again. Harry had the weird sense that the other man thought he was talking, that he could hear his own voice even though no sound was coming out. Malfoy swallowed hard, shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “My father.”

Harry waited, but Malfoy’s voice seemed to have failed him again. In the razor silence, thought after thought broke across Harry’s mind: anything concerning Lucius Malfoy was a nauseating slug of anger to his gut. Possibilities rose and fell before him. Malfoy’s frail voice broke through it all.

“I want… I’m asking for your help. To get him out.”

Impossible. Harry blinked, and blinked again. The asymmetry wavered in front of his eyes as though splashed across a banner, and he fought the urge to laugh. He walked away from the chair and leaned against the wall, unable to think clearly. Just supposing… supposing Malfoy was serious? It had to be a joke, Malfoy coming here and saying that. To him.

But looking at the man sagging in the chair, Harry could see that sincerity was all he had left. 

“Your father’s been in Azkaban for a year and a half. Why the sudden interest?”

He was unprepared for the flinch that curled through Malfoy’s frame. Malfoy lifted a hand until it hovered at face level. Harry’s heart thudded. He pushed away from the wall and came toward his guest. “Malfoy?”

“My mother’s dead, Potter.” 

Four words, spoken so softly they could have been dreamed. But Harry heard the agony interlaced in their syllables.

“How?” he asked softly. Malfoy focussed on the wall in front of him. 

“I failed Voldemort.”

In an instant Harry was thrown back to the tower, to the sight of a pale, shaking hand pointing a wand at Dumbledore’s heart.

“Did you…” He fumbled for words, for composure. “Were you there? When your mother—”

It felt blasphemous to ask, to seek a story from this, as though he were reading a book. The look that came into Malfoy’s eyes only made his stomach twist.

“No.” He didn’t offer anything further.

Harry rocked on his heels for a tense moment. The air felt charged with the question waiting on his lips, and somewhere inside, surfacing faster than he thought possible, he knew the answer. “Why do you think I’ll help you?”

It was a struggle to watch; Malfoy’s wan features pinched, growing even whiter. One hand curled so tightly around the wrist of the other that Harry feared his arm would snap. “A few months ago, my… my last year—” Malfoy jerked his head. Took a deep breath.

“Before he died, Dumbledore told me he…” Harry heard Malfoy suck in another breath. He was staring at the floor.

Malfoy had not given himself time to grieve yet. It was all rising behind the barriers he’d put up, threatening to flood over. 

“My father—Potter. You’re the saviour of the Wizarding world.” His mouth worked and no further sounds came out. But Harry heard it nonetheless.

 _So save him._

Harry swallowed, finding it impossible to look at Malfoy any longer. Save him? He was not Lucius Malfoy’s saviour; even the silly fancies of heroic mercy toward his enemies had never included the elder Malfoy. The idea was repugnant. Lucius Malfoy deserved whatever befell him five times over. He deserved to rot in the gloom of that prison, screaming out his fear, begging to be set free.

But there was something even sourer in what Draco Malfoy was not saying. Betrayal lay there, something this man knew more than enough about. He’d stared it in the face and dropped his eyes up on that tower, just before events had rolled out of his control. Did any of them really have control? Or was it an illusion given by leaders who inevitably fell, or threw their followers to the hounds as they rampaged forward? 

Lucius Malfoy had always been a Death Eater. But now, apparently, even that had failed him. And it had left him without a side, with only a forgotten, hunted son to speak for him. For the first time, Lucius Malfoy was wholly alone.

“Do you expect me to give your father some sort of sanctuary? Welcome him into the fold?” Harry said coldly. Malfoy lowered his eyes. Shook his head. The faintest of sneers tried to flicker, but faded before it could take hold.

“I never expected that.”

“Do you understand what we would do to him?” At Malfoy’s silence, Harry elaborated, letting years of hatred bleed into his words. “He’d never be brought here. He’d be spelled into senselessness, at the very least. He wouldn’t move, he wouldn’t speak. He wouldn’t _breathe_ unless I allowed it. If anything happened, he’d be killed before anything else.”

“Potter, I am prepared…” Malfoy closed his eyes briefly and inhaled. “I am prepared to offer you anything I can in return. Money. My services. Secrets. I don’t have many, but they are yours if…”

He studied Malfoy’s face silently. The look in his eyes drew him back again and again. Frustrated, Harry looked away, snapping the moment like so much thread. “I’ll take those secrets, no matter how trivial. But there’s something else.”

“Name it.”

“I want full access to every book in your family’s library.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. His mouth opened, closed. “Done,” was all he said.

“That includes the cursed ones as well.”

This time Malfoy stayed silent. Harry pressed on. “I assume that only someone who owns the books may remove the curses, and I’d guess that much of the time, that will be nearly impossible anyway. But we need those books. You’ll have help, of course.”

“You realise you’re putting your people at risk.”

“Yes. But they’re aware of their jobs. Curse-breaking isn’t a skill we lack.”

Malfoy shook his head. “No, Potter, I…” His shoulders twitched and he looked Harry right in the eye. “You put them at risk by putting them with me.”

“Malfoy, I plan on using Veritaserum liberally on you.”

Malfoy’s face sagged, but his chin did not drop. He nodded. “May I ask a favor?”

“Another one?”

Malfoy turned away. “You ask the questions.”

It was such a broken request, torn from a body that saw what it was being pushed into and could not see a way to avoid it. Harry felt obscenely as if he were violating Malfoy in some way. If it was legitimate, this request to save Lucius Malfoy… Harry suddenly saw what he was to the man in front of him, what that little show in the front hall had accomplished, even as he let the change go by unnoticed. Who he had become to Draco Malfoy in those first few minutes. Perhaps even earlier? Malfoy had come here with this intention, knowing he might not even make it in alive to see Harry. Yet he’d risked it, and by the slightest of chances, it had paid off. Given the choice of who would be privy to his most closely kept secrets, he was choosing Harry again. In his position, Harry would have asked the same: to be questioned only by the one he sought.

“Alright,” he said. Malfoy raised his eyes to his in the silence.

Harry waved his wand once at his side, and it was a long, hushed moment before Malfoy straightened in the chair. He sat poised like a frightened bird, and then slowly got to his feet. His gaze remained wary, fixed on Harry. Harry’s fingers tensed around his wand. He resisted the urge to step back.

“You’ll be confined with spells into one of the rooms of this house, until we can verify what you’ve said, and what you’ll tell us under Veritaserum. If you so much as make a move to leave, or to contact anyone, I’ll let them have you.” 

Malfoy nodded. His chin lifted. Harry frowned and studied the arc of Malfoy’s neck. Still so poised; his whole body seemed to be clutching at the stance it remembered, even as it withered. 

“The books?”

“I’ll tell you how to get them.” The words were almost directed at the room instead of at Harry. Malfoy’s left arm hung at his side. As if breaking through the surface of a pond, Harry noticed the rigidity of the limb. In all his stilted movements, Malfoy had not moved that hand. Or that arm.

“Why should I trust you?” Harry asked bluntly.

Malfoy cast a glance around the room but didn’t fixate on anything. When he returned to Harry, some spark had died.

“Quite right,” Malfoy muttered. “You shouldn’t.”

He gave a nod and turned for the door, looking wearier than ever. Harry lunged forward and grabbed his left arm. Malfoy hissed and froze. Pain spasmed over his face. He jerked away.

“Malfoy.” Harry stepped closer. Malfoy backed up and Harry raised a hand in placation. He reached for Malfoy’s left sleeve.

“Don’t.” Malfoy pulled out of reach, right hand hovering over his forearm. Harry let his hand drop.

“You haven’t answered it,” he said.

Malfoy let out a choked sound. Pink immediately tinged his cheeks. He cradled his limb. “Potter—”

Pale fingers twitched over black fabric. Then, slowly, hesitantly, Malfoy lifted the edge of his sleeve, casting his forearm into the light.

The Mark seethed against white flesh, its edges red and raised. Harry could see the difference in skin texture: angry blisters, tender bruising. Under the snake’s lapping tongue, the wrist was raw and pink. Harry looked away. “How long has it been hurting?”

Malfoy’s jaw clenched. “A year.”

Harry looked at the nearest wall. The edges of the wallpaper were curling, warped by the damp and bordered in mold. “I’ll take you to your room.” He started for the door and, after a shaky moment, heard Malfoy’s footsteps following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two stunning pieces of art for this chapter: The first is **[Come My Swete](http://jollywhizzbee.deviantart.com/art/Come-my-swete-51045426?q=by%3Ajollywhizzbee&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps)** by jollywhizzbee. The second is Draco by lillithium, but the link I have won't display the artwork anymore... Anyone know where I can reach lillithium?


	7. Soothsayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone know how to reach lillithium? ^_^

**originally posted 3/22/07**

 

**Grimmauld Place, 1997**

Harry had chosen the shabby gallery for its imposing stature and convenience—few had reason to go there these days—but now, standing in the middle of the room, its vastness felt far too daunting. Harry let his eyes meet Hermione’s where she sat in the second level with the others. She looked exhausted; no wonder, as she’d been out fortifying the wards around the house for the entire day. Ron stood against the wall behind her, arms crossed over his narrow chest. Moody’s beady stare glimmered next to Hermione, the rolling eye for once fixed. Harry could see the tight lines on Minerva McGonagall’s face. The Hogwarts Headmistress sat as straight as a rod, gazing down on the floor and its occupants. She’d come specifically for this, and Harry was grateful. 

Beside McGonagall sat Remus Lupin, hands composed in his lap. Even from below, Harry could pick out the new gouges that adorned his cheeks, and the deep circles under his eyes. He spent his full moons alone now. Harry was only beginning to understand the toll that isolation exacted on him. An old pang for Sirius hummed in his chest; he had often wondered how deep that pain bit into Lupin. The loss of a friend, a companion. Perhaps—or probably, when Harry really considered it—more.

But he had nothing to spare for Sirius tonight. Kingsley Shacklebolt’s penetrating gaze lowered from above as well, and Griselda Marchbanks’. The woman’s diminutive stature did nothing to decrease her presence; she gazed down from the upper level with a crooked eyebrow, lips already a thin line. She’d arrived just before Minerva, asking only where they were keeping the “youngest of the Malfoys.” Now, seated stiffly beside Shacklebolt, she exuded an incalculable age into the room.

Harry’s selection of this room had one other purpose. He doubted Malfoy had noticed the large, ancient portraits adorning the walls. Particular ones; some covered over with white sheets, some empty of their occupants. And one on the west wall in the darkness, oft frequented by a familiar, half-moon-spectacled face.

They all had a vested interest in this, and Harry had not attempted to keep them out. Whatever came of it, whatever was spoken under the cold light of truth, it was best they hear it for themselves.

He turned around and focussed again on the task at hand. “When was the last time you were in any sort of contact with your father?”

Draco Malfoy’s eyes had clouded. Their focus was disturbed and milky, like a pond’s surface broken by a pebble. He swung his gaze to Harry and drew a stilted breath. Malfoy had five full seconds to fight his way through the muddle of Veritaserum and begin his answer. Any more than that, and he was resisting the truth too much to ignore. So far, he had met the requirement. As far as Harry could tell—and Moody as well, by his silence—Malfoy had not yet managed to lie.

“Azkaban.” The word fell from his lips like a stone. One slow blink. Malfoy’s chin drooped. “This year, in… in the month of… I don’t know…” A look of pain passed briefly over his face as he struggled with the potion’s effects.

Hermione’s finest. Double the strength.

“The month,” Harry pressed in as flat a tone as he could manage. “What was the month?”

Malfoy opened his mouth and shut it again, and Harry had the intriguing idea that the man was going through the months in his mind, one by one until he found the one that the Veritaserum would allow to pass. “A…April,” he said at last.

“Did he ask you to get him out?”

It was a question he’d already asked twice, one of McGonagall’s, but Malfoy showed no recognition of that fact. His answer came as readily as before. “Yes.”

“Did he ask you to ask us to get him out?”

That one was new, and weak surprise registered on Malfoy’s face. “No.”

“To whom did he wish you to go for help in his release?”

The blond head shook. Harry could see the confusion Malfoy’s answer was causing him, as if the truth were too large or the question a trick. Just as it had when he’d asked it previously.

“He… No… He asked me. I asked him if—Death Eaters—” Malfoy tried again. “He wanted the Ministry to get him out. Or Death Eaters, but not all Death Eaters. Not Voldemort.”

“When did you first consider coming to us for help in his release?”

A spasm wrinkled Malfoy’s forehead. “Not in Azkaban. I thought of you after… afterward.”

“When did you first consider coming to us for help in his release?” Harry repeated slowly.

Malfoy shuddered and again gave up the answer he kept trying to avoid. “When my mother… When I found my mother’s body.”

“Were you present when your mother was killed?” Remus’ question. On the upper level, Remus’ long fingers rested lightly against his chin.

Malfoy sagged in the chair. A tear worked its way slowly from his eye. “No.”

“Where were you?” Another of Remus’. 

A second tear joined the first. “Wales. Conwy.”

“From what date to what date?”

“Third… July, 1997. Until…” A small breath. “Four weeks ago.”

“What were you doing there?”

Malfoy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I was hiding. Waiting for the war to end.”

“Why?”

“Hiding from… from Voldemort.”

It was the fourth time through that line of questioning, and the second time Harry had seen tears dewing Malfoy’s face. His answers were the same as they had been. It was enough; he would not have to repeat the questions again.

But there were worse ones coming.

Abruptly he shifted topics. “Are you in league with any Death Eaters?”

If the switch upset him, Malfoy did not show it. “No.”

“Have you ever been in league with any Death Eaters?”

A pause. “Yes.”

Moody’s questions, to be scattered throughout. Details of the cabinet, Severus Snape, even Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom had been put forth already, several times. A fabrication here and there, to judge Malfoy’s knowledge of events. Certain answers came easily; others Malfoy consistently resisted, no matter how many variations of the question were put forth.

Harry was beginning to notice a pattern to the type of question Draco Malfoy tried to avoid. The Headmistress, with her years watching her students, and the most senior Auror had likely seen it as well.

And Madam Marchbanks. The old woman caught Harry’s eye and gave the slightest of nods. Harry chose one of her questions. “You will provide us with the names of the Death Eaters your age.”

Malfoy raised his head and looked at Harry with an awareness that had not been there before. A faint line appeared between his brows. “Vincent Crabbe.”

“Deceased,” Harry countered. “How?”

Malfoy looked away. Shut his eyes as if remembering. “Infernus Hex. Caught and killed in Diagon Alley by Aurors.”

It was not well-known how Crabbe had really met his demise. Only those truly in Voldemort’s confidence, or in the highest ranks of the Order, would know about the ancient wasting spell that had slowly drained Crabbe’s life away. The spell, filled with tracking magic, would have led the Aurors straight to Voldemort, had not the carrier died too quickly. But as far as the public of the Wizarding world knew, Vincent Crabbe had been slaughtered by Infernus in a raid, one of four Death Eaters who tried to burn Diagon Alley to the ground. A trap, set and sprung by the Order, and not peered at too closely by citizens already stretched to their limits. In reality, Crabbe’s debilitating magical illness had burned away with the ashes of his body, far from Diagon Alley in the bowels of the Ministry. 

It was not something Harry was proud of, or personally responsible for. But it had its uses, even now; Malfoy had no idea.

“Other names?”

Malfoy slurred into each. Gregory Goyle. Horace Urquhart. Terence Higgs, deceased. Sandra Fawcett, deceased. Adrian Pucey, permanently incapacitated. Millicent Bulstrode.

And there were those who were missing, as Malfoy had been for the past half-year: Daphne Greengrass and Graham Pritchard, fled the country. Marcus Flint, unaccounted for. Tracey Davis, unaccounted for, believed dead. Marietta Edgecombe, fled the country. Montague, disappeared after Calais. 

As for those younger than Pritchard, Malfoy could not give names. 

“And Blaise Zabini?” Harry asked. “Pansy Parkinson. Theodore Nott.”

Malfoy’s muddled eyes flashed as brightly as the Veritaserum allowed. “They are _not_ Death Eaters.”

Harry glanced up at Madam Marchbanks. She nodded again. Malfoy’s answers—and emotional responses—had not changed.

Marchbanks’ questions continued, along with those that particularly interested Moody and Shacklebolt: What did Voldemort know about the Order presently? When did Malfoy last see Voldemort? Where was Severus Snape?—Minerva and Remus stiffened at that one—What were the details of the Siege of Calais? The attack on Wizarding Bordeaux? The destruction of Muggle Surrey… All attacks that had been inundated with clandestine dealings on both sides, and carried out in secrecy so deep even Harry didn’t know the darkest mysteries about some of them. But it was clear that Malfoy knew even less about the battles’ inner workings; he’d no idea that Bordeaux had fallen at all. And none knew about that save those who had been there to see it cursed into oblivion, as Harry had; the concealing spells were still too well-maintained.

In the shadows on the upper tier, Ron shifted fitfully. Harry made a decision. “Malfoy.”

Malfoy looked at him vaguely. Harry stepped forward, nearly too close for comfort. “Are you involved in a sabotage plot against the Order?”

“I…” Malfoy’s frown was dark and brittle. “Not knowingly.”

There was some stirring in the upper level. Harry narrowed his eyes and moved even closer. 

“Does anyone— _anyone_ —know you are here?”

Malfoy watched him, his head tilting slightly away. “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here. Or planning to come here,” he added after a second.

Harry settled a hand on the arm of Malfoy’s chair, centimetres from his pale fingers. “Does anyone know you are here?” he repeated.

Malfoy’s fingers twitched. A struggle rippled through his irises. 

“I don’t know,” he answered at last.

It was the truth, whatever the consequences of such imprecision might be. Perhaps the Death Eaters knew, through no fault of Malfoy’s. Voldemort’s spies were turning up in the strangest places. Or perhaps they knew and it was Malfoy’s doing after all, albeit unwittingly. Harry straightened. “How did you get close to this house?”

“I…” Malfoy licked his lips. “I’m not sure. All I could think of was reaching y—reaching the Order. The outer wards let me through. I felt them, but they let me—”

Harry slashed a hand through the air. “But how did you know where to look?”

The room was deathly quiet. The people above him were holding their breaths. Malfoy’s voice was deafening in the stillness. “It was…”

He was resisting. No matter. Harry already knew what the answer would be.

At last the whisper came. “Snape.”

A gasp or two from up above, but Harry was not surprised. The house was not Unplottable to those who knew just where to look. Those who had helped to make it Unplottable. Those who had been in its rooms, had known its location even under Fidelius. There were certainly new wards to keep Snape out. But the original spell was too deep and too complex, and that sort of magic had no special codes to change. A terrible oversight, as magic went. As for Fidelius, Snape could very well have gotten Malfoy into the right area at some point in the recent past, without breaking his magically bound oaths, and then all Malfoy had to do was wait for someone to come along—for nearly a week, as it had turned out.

It was no use pursuing questions about Snape. It had become clear hours ago that Malfoy had no knowledge of the man’s whereabouts, or even if he were still alive.

Harry went back to Narcissa Malfoy’s death.

No, Malfoy had not known names. Yes, he had considered a possible threat to his family. No, he had never attempted to warn his mother. The slow, painful fall of his face as each question presented itself showed Harry more than enough about what Malfoy’s opinions of his actions were in this matter.

“Describe your mother’s death, Malfoy.”

Utter shock stabbed through the lattice of Veritaserum in those grey eyes, but just as quickly a tangible relief flooded into its place. “I can’t. I wasn’t there to see it.”

Harry leaned forward, cursing himself as he did so. “Do you remember when you saw her dead body for the first time?”

Malfoy stopped breathing. He stared at Harry with slaughtered eyes, and the blood rushed out of his face.

“Yes,” he whispered. Barely. Resisting again.

But Hermione’s brew was the purest and cruelest that Harry had ever witnessed. It allowed nothing to escape. Harry had seen Death Eaters offer up the names of their own children in order to escape its relentless force.

It would never allow Draco Malfoy the dignity of hiding a memory he would rather forget.

“How did she die?” Harry murmured. “Who killed her?”

He could see it in his mind’s eye as Draco answered, in trembling tones that wavered as though they would drown under their own weight. Narcissa’s skin, pale as the moon’s wash, eyes open, as glassy as pools of water. The singe of charred flesh in a smoky room, with the minty hint of the killing spell still hovering. A massive Dark Mark, burned into the silken threads of her nightdress and the flesh of her breast. Delicate fingers curled in a plea. 

By the time Malfoy fell silent, the constant catch of his voice sat heavily in the room. Glistening trails wound their way down his cheeks. Harry stared at the wall, seeing Narcissa Malfoy’s twisted body imprinted there.

Even she had not been spared. He’d seen that mark of death before, on the dead bodies of Aurors, on hapless Muggles who’d had no chance in Hades. They’d not known what struck them down, but those that came after, those that saw their burned bodies… They knew. Somewhere inside themselves, _they knew._

It aged a person. Harry himself had felt the years creep over him, far too many and too quickly. His innocence, a weak and flailing thing since birth, had long ago given up the ghost and hidden away from all this world’s disturbing offerings. And Malfoy had seen it, too, on his own mother.

Harry looked down, resigning himself to the years he would see in Malfoy’s eyes.

They were not there. Malfoy’s face was still, weary around the edges of his mouth. His lips had parted and there was a tattered looseness to his expression: a need Harry had not seen in years, and never on that face. Some nightmarish dream lay behind his old adversary’s expression, waiting to be banished, explained away into the insignificance of such dreams—

 _By you,_ Harry’s mind whispered, _he’s waiting for you._ And suddenly he knew what he was seeing. It was the last shred of youth Malfoy possessed, asserting itself when experience and callousness had failed to work. It blistered a hole into Harry’s chest. He stuck his hand out, gripped the edge of Malfoy’s chair.

For the first time since the interrogation started, Harry truly loathed what he was doing. He didn’t know if he had the power to wake Malfoy from his nightmares, but it was more than obvious that Malfoy thought he did. The very idea quickened Harry’s pulse. He had succeeded in one thing at least: if any of the others had been down here questioning this man, a far greater number of irrelevant secrets would have been spilled. A greater number of torturous memories. And for what? To satisfy the need to hurt, to discredit Malfoy? To plunge him into utter hopelessness? Some part of Harry’s old schoolmate still clutched onto hope: a father, to be delivered up by the single most unlikely person to help him. 

Hope of leaving this house alive.

It was never enough to let a person walk away, still breathing. But it was enough to let him walk away with his dignity intact. Harry was the only one in the room, save Remus, perhaps, who would not be tempted to destroy Malfoy in such a personal way.

Still… he had one other avenue that he felt he must take. He had saved his own questions for last.

He gripped both arms of Malfoy’s chair. Studied the man in silence. And then spoke, when the time was right.

“What happened the last night you were at Hogwarts during sixth year?”

The room went so still that Harry could hear the mansion settling. His question echoed in his ears, and Malfoy’s expression changed once more. It was almost as though Harry could hear the plea in those eyes.

_Please. Please don’t ask me that._

Harry turned to look at the upper level. All those listening were staring back at him. He could see the white clutch of Hermione’s fingers around the banister, and knew she was aware of what he was doing. The faces of the older adults were inscrutable. But the accusation in seven pairs of eyes was plain. In the darkness behind Malfoy, something shifted in the shadows of the portrait.

Harry dropped his voice and locked Malfoy’s wide eyes with his. “Just for me, then. Tell me what happened that night. On the roof.”

Malfoy’s answer was so soft, so quavery, that Harry was glad of the void around them. He heard creaking in the balcony as the others leaned over it, but there was no possible way they could hear what Malfoy was saying. Harry heard events he had no need to remind himself of—he would never, ever forget them—and listened the emotions behind the words instead. The fear of a dark master Malfoy had seen only once before… The liberation of a plan finally taking shape. The sheer _need_ to see his father again. To save a mother who would later die, in spite of everything. 

The shame… in pointing his wand at the man who had offered him the only solace he would ever know. The shame of hearing such an offer even after threatening murder. The shame of having to tell the truth to him, Harry Potter, when it would only sound like a request from an ungrateful refugee.

Horror as Dumbledore flew over the parapet, as he saw the true work of green light at last, and smelled death’s scent. Staggering relief, that it had not been his wand that had done the deed, but Snape’s. 

The betrayal, quick and complete, of finding his efforts had been for nothing in the end.

The scene must have been imprinted on Malfoy’s mind as well; he remembered nearly every detail, and gave them forth with the deathly waver of one who expected to be condemned for his crimes. Perhaps he would have been, had Harry not been there to see the entire event himself.

But there, in that memory, lay the heart of Draco Malfoy’s soul. Somewhere in the midst of it, Harry was at last convinced of his sincerity.

“Thank you,” was all he said. Malfoy stared blankly down at his hands, wallowing in the residual grief. Harry looked up at the others, who had remained oddly silent throughout the final scene.

“We’re finished here.”

Some muttering. Remus, Hermione, and Madam Marchbanks nodded and rose. Shacklebolt and Minerva wore thoughtful expressions, and Ron stared at Harry for a long time before moving to stand beside Hermione. Moody’s magical eye glared down through the gloom at the man slumped in the chair. His grimace was anything but hidden when he got to his feet. 

“You ask him, Potter,” Moody growled. “Or I will.”

Harry straightened. The question Moody spoke of had been meant for the entire group to hear, and the answer was not necessary for intelligence or even corroboration. But Harry was no longer willing to let Malfoy struggle for all of them to see. He would be the one to hurt Malfoy, and he would be the only one to hear Malfoy’s resulting humiliation.

“I’ll ask,” he said. “But only for him.”

Moody reluctantly nodded.

Harry leaned close to Malfoy again, so near hat he could see the separation of fine blond strands falling over his ear. His voice shook, just a little. “In Conwy, Draco. Why were you hiding from Voldemort?”

Malfoy’s breathing stuttered. His knuckles go white around the arms of the chair. He had squeezed his eyes shut and his chin was trembling with the effort not to speak.

“Why were you hiding?” Harry whispered again, as soft as rain.

A short gasping exhalation; Malfoy’s throat bobbed. “I was—Potter—” 

“Malfoy?”

His eyes opened, clear and ridden with shame. His cheeks and throat were flushed with the heat of it. But he stared straight at Harry, and the words slipped over his tongue like water. “I was a coward. And I couldn’t go to him. I… couldn’t.”

Harry held Malfoy’s watery gaze for what felt like ages. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Alright.” 

* * *

 

He stood in the corridor outside the third floor chambers, and thought once again about opening the door before him. But he couldn’t even bring himself to grip the cold brass knob.

If this door opened, he would have to walk inside, would have to speak, and destroy something that was already fragile.

Why was this so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard. Harry didn’t give a fuck about Lucius Malfoy. He’d already let go of the image of the man’s body, smouldering in the filth of Azkaban, blank face painted an ugly green by the spells whizzing back and forth. He should not have given a fuck about informing Malfoy of the death of his last surviving family member. It was part of fighting a war, and sadly, Harry had already seen signs that he was becoming used to speaking of death.

But he couldn’t open this door.

The rescue had gone badly. Azkaban had been quiet, nothing but the drip drip of water leeching through limestone, the groans and cries of those still trapped within. The four people on Harry’s team had slunk past many battered cells, felt the clutch of nameless fingers from those locked inside. Harry remembered the pitiful moan of one emaciated creature, male or female, he couldn’t tell, but it had reached for him with a hand that quivered like a leaf. It had croaked his name.

They’d gone on past it.

Lucius Malfoy’s cell stood in the middle of a long passageway, its bars rusted and heavy with moss. Dean had asked no questions, only slithered forward on the floor and shot a stunning spell through the bars to encompass anything lying within. It was the work of a moment to break the steel and slip inside. Lucius lay face up on the ground, covered in the remnants of gold-embossed velvet. He stared dully at the ceiling, but it wasn’t until Harry came forward and snatched up his wrist that he knew.

Lucius Malfoy was dead. His thunderhead irises had clouded, the pupils huge and fixed in the dank light. His flesh held the slimy chill of something left to dampen in the dark. Harry banished the stunning spell with a hissed _Finite,_ but the heat of a body, of life, was gone. Across the chest of the elder Malfoy’s rotted robes, the hideous charred symbol of skull and snake glared fiercely up at Harry. When he touched the ashes, they crumbled and swirled away. But they were still acidic. New.

There was something else out in the darkened hallway. A fifth and fading presence, once human. Malfoy’s filmed eyes stared up at him from the floor. Harry shivered.

It had been a running fight from the prison. Harry cursed himself for not sensing it immediately, but the magic around Azkaban was still too strong. It was the only thing holding the inmates inside, and it had covered up the traces of three Death Eaters. The only saving grace was that it had also covered the signatures of Harry’s group. Complete surprise was the only way to explain the chaos that had followed, and the sloppiness of the Death Eaters. Harry’s team made it out from under the stifling magic unscathed, save one.

Harry pressed his fingers to his temple. As bad as it felt, he was glad it had been Remus, who had volunteered to accompany him, and not one of the two people he had ordered into it. There was too much dissention concerning Draco Malfoy already.

But it was over. Remus would be fine, given a few days rest, and now the only thing lying between Harry and sleep was this door. Harry snorted and shook his head. Sleep? Even after he delivered his piece, that luxury would not come for hours.

He grimaced into the empty hallway. “Well. He’s just like you now.”

An orphan. His head hurt.

Finally Harry took hold of the knob and, before he could think about it any longer, gave it a turn. The bolt shifted with a soft squeak. He opened the door, uncertain of what he would find inside.

The room was warm and dimly lit. The draughts of the ancient house had been driven away, and a strange hush enveloped Harry. He paused to let his eyes adjust. 

The bed by the far wall was neatly made. Undisturbed. Seemingly innocuous books were piled in droves about the room, in corners, at the foot of the large wing-backed chair in the centre. They were old tomes, cracked with age but well-cared for: Malfoy’s library. So Kingsley and Bill had been successful. Harry tore his eyes from the ancient texts and fixed them on the figure sitting in the chair instead.

Malfoy had bathed sometime during Harry’s venture, combed his hair. He’d not been able to bring himself to see Malfoy since the interrogation. But somehow the cleanliness only mocked them both. Malfoy’s body was sunken in an age and weariness that glared through his softly layered fringe, the fine fingers and pale, scrubbed face.

Harry slipped inside and shut the door behind him. What had once been a fire had guttered into coals, and the glow played over the careworn tapestries. “Malfoy?”

Malfoy didn’t respond; he didn’t _move._ But his entire frame withered somehow. Harry was suddenly aware of the air in the room: heavy and teetering. 

Malfoy turned toward him, as if struggling through a fog across the space between them. The faint light in his eyes faded even as Harry watched, and Harry knew then that nothing needed to be said; Malfoy already knew what the outcome had been. He turned slowly away again, eyes tracking nothing. 

“How?”

Harry took a breath and let it out. Rehearsing what he was going to say while walking the dingy halls of Grimmauld was nothing next to standing in front of Malfoy and speaking the words aloud. He clenched his hands and forced them to relax again. “Death Eaters. Got there before we did.”

A drunken nod. Malfoy’s face was like a stone tablet, blank on first glance, but when Harry peered closer, he could see it was etched deeply with lines of strangled emotion. He studied his old rival and saw the end in Malfoy’s eyes. Something tightened in Harry’s chest, and he swallowed against it.

What was he doing? This was no Death Eater sitting before him. Harry didn’t think there had ever really been a Death Eater behind those pale, angled features. This was a man, wrenched from boyhood too early and then draped like a forgotten rag into this overstuffed chair. Left to crumble by the one he had tried to obey. A thought insinuated itself between the others: Harry suddenly remembered the last time he’d seen Draco Malfoy flung aside. Lying in a pool of water in a deserted bathroom, covered in blood, staring at some horror only he could see. Staring up at him. Harry’s stomach lurched. He knelt in front of the chair, clutched at the armrest with one hand, and made a decision.

“You don’t owe me anything, Malfoy. Everything—” He stopped, gesturing weakly. There just wasn’t anything adequate anymore. Not for this. “I won’t make you stay.”

Malfoy didn’t even twitch. Harry wasn’t sure if the other man had heard him. He fought the urge to touch Malfoy’s arm. “You can go... wherever it is you need to go. No one will say a word.”

 _I’ll make certain of it._

Eyes the colour of slate flickered to his. Harry recognised the expression from that bathroom floor. It was compounded now by what the years had thrown down before Malfoy. A a great gouge had been cut into the fabric of Malfoy’s being. _This is what the edge must look like,_ Harry thought.

Malfoy’s eyes slid away again.

“The wards will be open for departures only tomorrow at six,” Harry said, hating the shiver in his voice. “I can’t give you your wand, but… You go peacefully, and they won’t stop you.”

Harry squeezed the armrest once more, wishing it was Malfoy’s arm instead, and rose to his feet. The door was closed again, with him on the other side this time. Malfoy’s side. Harry breathed deeply and thought of bandages, supplies. Food and water. He wondered about Malfoy’s left arm.

“Thank you.” Two words, spoken with nothing but the barest sliver of life. But even that sliver held sincerity. 

Harry looked back over his shoulder. Malfoy was still staring at the wall. There was a shimmer at the edges of his eyes, above the dark smudges underneath. He nodded jerkily, knowing Malfoy would not see, and left the room before the knowledge pressed in on him.

* * *

His night was sleepless. He lay on his back in the earliest hours and sought the familiar cracks in his ceiling, thoughts shifting over that closed door upstairs and the broken person within. A few hours and Malfoy would be gone, as quickly and suddenly as he’d arrived. In all likelihood, Harry would never again lay eyes on the boy—the man—who had made his school days a torment.

Earlier that evening, Sloper had carried on about what he would do to Malfoy, _just march up to that room and take care of the bastard. Like you should have done your sixth year._ Sloper’s sneer had been uglier than the suffering Harry had walked past in Azkaban. Harry had grabbed him, thrown him against the wall.

_If I find that you’ve touched him, Sloper, without my permission—any of you!—you will find yourself on the wrong side of these wards without a wand, and every Death Eater known to man howling down on your head._

Harry rose and stirred up the fire, then sat in his chair to watch the embers disintegrate. As if called forth by a spell, Malfoy’s face took shape in the orange coals. That night… and during the interrogation… and the evening he’d first arrived. Harry shut his own eyes, but even that did not block it out. Not all of the dull glaze during the interrogation had been caused by the Veritaserum. Harry didn’t want to remember the expression on Malfoy’s face, but he’d known then that he would see it in his mind for a long time.

Now, he feared it would be permanent.

Dawn’s rays were strengthening when he left his room at last. Malfoy would be long gone by now. Harry gathered several people and mounted the stairs to the room to retrieve the ancient books.

He opened the door and found Draco collapsed on the floor, his face a deadly shade of white. Every single curse from every one of the one hundred and seventeen spelled tomes had been removed. And it was Hermione’s startled gasp that clenched it for him; McGonagall’s incredulous _Why did he do this alone? What possibly possessed him_ —And Moody’s grim stumping down the stairs and equally grim call for Madam Pomfrey.

Pomfrey had Malfoy moved to the bed, and cast a series of spells over him before finally shutting the door on everyone except Bill Weasley, their most knowledgeable surviving curse-breaker. When the door opened two hours later, Malfoy’s face had been washed clean of whatever agony he’d endured. He slept, arms limp at his sides, cheeks still bloodless in the fire’s glow.

The books were tested and removed to a lower floor for study, and everyone gradually filtered away to whatever their business of the day was. Somehow, Harry could not bring himself to leave the doorway of Malfoy’s room. He remained there for the entire day, until Hermione ushered him away to eat, just watching the rise and fall of Malfoy’s chest under the duvet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more gorgeous works of art from lillithium for this chapter... Still can't link to them, alas!


	8. Suspended

**originally posted 3/30/07**

On New Year’s Day, 1998, small skirmishes broke out in and around the Wizarding city of Vratza in Bulgaria, between Death Eaters and the Bulgarian Wizarding police. The violence escalated for weeks until what has been termed the Battle of Vratza occurred on the morning of 28 January. The battle was short but bloody; it lasted for four hours before ending in a ceasefire, which was broken again soon afterward, leading to five days of violence. The Battle of Vratza, though ultimately ending in a stalemate, marked the decimation of the Veela population, when half rose on the side of Voldemort, and half against him.

~

**The forest, present day, 1999**

Ginny woke at dusk from a very sensual dream.

When she opened her eyes, she very nearly expected Harry to be there beside her, arms around her, pressing her against his damp chest. The ghostly scent of sweat lingered in her nostrils and her fingers tingled with touching skin her entire body remembered, though she had not felt it in years. Her muscles were still reacting to the comforting weight of Harry upon them, and her… Ginny inhaled sharply, still swimming up from the fog of dreams. There was a riveting pulse between her thighs, aching up her spine and into her belly in delicious, unsatisfied waves.

The cruel orange of melting twilight swept into her eyes, banishing the dream. Ginny sucked in another breath. Her legs spasmed before she could stop them, and she sat up, tossing the cloak from her. Her hand climbed to clutch her shirt.

She was still clothed. And this, beneath her, was no downy bedding, no lush hollow firmed by muscled arms and legs about her. This was hard earth, packed with pine needles and the odd rock. She was outside.

She blinked, unable to get her bearings. Cool wind danced over her flesh like the fingers she had just succumbed to in her sleep. She caught Malfoy’s gaze aimed levelly at her from several yards away.

“Something wrong?” he asked. A frown pinched his brow. Ginny’s cheeks flushed with a new sort of heat.

“I’m too warm.” Merlin. The idea of what Malfoy might have seen or heard seconds ago turned her innards. She wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to quiet the pulsing in her groin. She hoped she hadn’t whispered anything in her sleep, or gasped some name.

 _You hope you didn’t gasp Harry’s name,_ her brain supplied. Ginny glowered at the ground. No sense in denying who she’d dreamt herself with; his smell was too familiar to ignore, the memory of his kiss far too cherished. Her mind had filled in the rest with the memories of what had often followed, and then left her shuddering with it, yearning for a finish that would never come.

She rubbed her eyes, massaging them awake. Malfoy’s expression was now nondescript; either he was ignoring her dream or she’d made no sound worthy of investigation. Ginny felt it to be the latter; surely his understanding would have shown in some way. A blush, a sneer. A comment, if she were very unlucky.

But Malfoy only handed her a cold biscuit and an apple, then suggested their imminent departure from the glade. Ginny stuck the apple in her pocket and drew her cloak back over her shoulders. The colour in the sky was fading fast into deep blue. The first pinpricks of stars twinkled amidst the expanse. She picked up her knapsack and followed Malfoy through the trees, taking the apple out again as they walked.

It had been nearly a day of silence since their argument. She’d felt no need to pick at it again, and apparently neither had her guide. It just seemed silly when they hunkered down to rest during the day, and too noisy at night when they were on the move. Malfoy strode briskly forward as though he could see their path stretching out like the winking stars above, and leaving her to follow behind. The small hours of the previous night, spent winding her way carefully behind Malfoy over upturned roots and holes concealed by dead leaves, had said as much to her as Malfoy could have. He would not speak if he didn’t have to. He wouldn’t cater to the speed she set, nor would he press her into a ragged pace through the woods. He moved with self-possession, expected her to follow if she knew what was good for her. And Ginny knew what was good for her. At the moment, it happened to involve Draco Malfoy, and she was undecided how she felt about the change. 

It had taken her some time to realise she was not merely a charge, but an equal. In a manner of speaking.

Malfoy pushed aside a curtain of moss and paused, scanning whatever lay beyond. His pale hand came back, motioning her forward. Ginny ducked into a wide clearing in the trees. White moonlight turned the ground into an indecipherable obstacle course, the tree trunks into lifeless spikes. Nothing moved except for the two of them.

The squirrelly feeling in her gut flared and died away again. It had been a constant companion ever since she’d left Seamus and Blaise, but the past two nights, she had barely noticed. Now a nagging prickle made her peer harder at the tree line, peek over her shoulder into the void behind. 

Three days and not a hint of anyone following. Tracking. Ginny supposed it was a good sign—no, a _lucky_ sign. But she’d never expected to make it all the way to Harry without being harassed by something or other. Regardless of how far away Hannah and Hermione were with her wand, or how careful Draco Malfoy was—he’d left no trail that she could have followed and seemed to know every hiding place available in this county—her instincts told her that the Death Eaters would find them. Somehow, someway, even if it wasn’t until they were at the very door of the castle. 

They would never let a person of her importance get by them. Her capture could make or break this war.

But the forest was silent and the hillsides barren under the moonlight. Malfoy hugged the shadows cast by the half-risen moon, plunging them back into the trees again as soon as possible. Ginny tucked up her cloak to keep it from snagging on branches and strained her eyes trying to see into every gloomy hole in the light.

Beyond the forest, she caught glimpses of plains covered in unkempt grass and dotted with the silhouettes of lone trees. Now and again, she saw deep black furrows in the earth, a sign of spellcasting. From weeks ago or months, there was no way to tell. The soil was charred and gouged, the huge scars of destructive spells hatching their way across the fields. A battle, then. Ginny fancied she could still taste the sulfur of Diffindo Severitas, the sickly sweet musk of the Razing Hexes. The stark moonlight did nothing to alleviate the sensation.

Ginny shivered, glad that Malfoy was ahead of her. Now, in the midst of all of this, she was dreaming of Harry. She’d never had a dream that felt so real. She might have reached out and grasped his fingers, kissed his lips, felt his harsh breaths flooding her mouth. She could still taste him on her tongue.

And she could feel him, there. Though she hadn’t felt him there in years.

In spite of the darkness, the weird wash of moonlight and the thrumming of her nerves, Ginny smiled. In a few days… _days_ … it would no longer be a dream. It would be her reality. The knowledge made her lightheaded with anxiety and quivery with excitement all at once. She was going to be his wife, in all but title. She’d be with Harry, for as long as fate intended.

Even in her fifth year, being with him, knowing that she just might be the one he chose to be with forever, she hadn’t felt like this. Somewhere along the way, the war, the death and horror and desperation, had taken that desire and honed it to a fine edge, sharper than it had ever been before. It meant more now.

The sky had lightened again to a smoky indigo by the time she and Malfoy reached another sizable outcropping of rock. This one was not natural, though: scorches laced the ashy granite, and the earth had been heaved about the base. The lunging stones seemed to topple over each other, casting shadows across the open ground, and it was in one of these shadows that Malfoy halted.

Ginny lowered herself gratefully to the ground and slid one trainer off, kneading the sole of her foot. Her shoes were soaking from the puddles they’d skirted, nearly worn through at the toes. The laces were thin and dirty. They were the last pair she’d purchased, when Diagon Alley had not yet become a snare for members of the Order. They were the only shoes she’d managed to save when Grimmauld had been abandoned.

“Here.” 

Ginny looked up, startled. Malfoy stood over her in the climbing light of dawn, his hand stretched out. “Give them to me. They’ll dry better on the rocks.”

She hesitated, then wordlessly removed her other trainer and handed both to him. He set them on a small boulder. At least they were out of the dewy grass. Ginny pondered her hands for a long moment, and then rummaged around in her knapsack until she found the granola. She tossed him the bag. He caught it, one eyebrow shooting up on his forehead. But he didn’t say anything.

Ginny found her eyes skittering away to follow the landscape. She took a deep breath. “Are we still on schedule?”

“As much as we can be.” Malfoy was not actually looking at her either, and his tone held a stiff indifference. Ginny let her attention sway back to the hills, relieved of an excuse not to focus on her guide. Perhaps ‘pretending not to’ was the better phrase; there was no other focus left for either of them but each other.

The silence resumed, and she was certain their sparse conversation was over, until Malfoy spoke again.

“We’ve open ground to cover.”

Ginny did look at him this time. “Tonight?”

He shook his head. The granola bag dangled from his fingers. “We stay in the woods. Until closer to dawn.”

“She’ll protect us, you know,” Ginny said, and Malfoy looked up. “She… Well, she can feel us. Or so Seamus said. When we get closer, she’ll protect us.”

It sounded so foolish, but the flash smoothing Malfoy’s brow was impossible to miss. She nodded to him and busied herself with tucking the cloak in around her body.

He handed her the canteen.

Dawn stretched pale tendrils of purple and pink over the damp grass. In the shadow of the rock pile, Ginny watched it come with interest. It was growing too light; the birds made a flurry of noise in the line of trees, darting over the fields and back again. They would have to move soon, back into the forest to find whatever nook or cranny Malfoy knew of in which to sleep the day away. The rock Ginny perched upon took on a greenish hue in the coming daylight and it took her several moments of curious staring to realise that she was looking at a thin covering of moss.

These stones had not been brought up by nature, and yet nature was exerting her influence already, taking them back under the folds of her cloak. Soon even the ugly furrows in the fields would be grown over as if they had never been. The rubble of the towns dotting the landscape, fallen to decimating magic, would be reabsorbed.

“Weasley.”

Malfoy glanced at her before looking out across the plains. A strange flush coloured his cheeks. “You’d better put your shoes back on.”

She grabbed her trainers, wincing at the chill. What she wouldn’t give for a drying charm. Suddenly the quiet was too pressing. Even Malfoy’s voice would be a comforting break. “You know your way around here,” she murmured.

For a second, Malfoy’s silence was so complete that Ginny was afraid she’d blundered again. Perhaps this was the area of England where Theodore Nott had met his end. She had no idea, only that it had been raining hard that day, and Malfoy had soaked the carpet when he’d arrived at Grimmauld. Nott’s eyes had been blank and staring already; both he and Malfoy were soaked in a dreadful red. She’d watched from the doorway, dumbstruck, as the other members of the Order dragged Nott’s body from Malfoy’s arms.

But Malfoy simply exhaled. “I’ve been here before.”

“Getting to know the area?” she tried, not really knowing why she was pursuing this.

“Yes.”

How long had they all been planning this little jaunt through the country? How long had they known about the binding spell, for that matter? Ginny had found out three harrowing months ago, and had considered herself one of the first to know. She, Hermione, Hannah, and Luna, the original potential partners for Harry’s bond. But maybe they’d not been the first to know about it. 

It dawned on her rather uneasily that she could trace Luna’s knowledge of the Siren’s Ward to the night Hogwarts had been destroyed, four months ago. Had Harry known about this then? Had they been preparing the impenetrable protections on whichever castle she and Malfoy were making their way toward? And they’d had the time even before that to send Malfoy into this county, to scour the land for hiding places and perhaps get Theodore Nott killed in the process. Who knew when Seamus and Blaise had been informed, or how much Neville had known before he’d departed for Bulgaria last winter?

Perhaps this plan was ages old. Perhaps all their lives had been planned for years.

 _This is just the culmination of everything,_ a voice whispered in her head. Of plots, of secrets, of dead Order members and hours of magical study. 

_You are the culmination of everything._

Ginny chewed her lip. And found Malfoy watching her again. Had he asked her a question? She couldn’t be sure; she’d been so lost in her thoughts. “What?”

His eyes widened and his head gave a quick jerk. “It’s not important.”

At first she thought he was staring at her hand. She moved it instinctively, but his attention did not waver and she realised he was looking at the moss.

Ginny remembered Nott having pale green eyes almost exactly the same colour.

“You miss him. Don’t you?”

Malfoy looked at her, one eyebrow lifted. Ginny put her hand back out and touched the moss. “Theodore Nott.”

It was shocking how cold his face went. Ginny blinked. 

Malfoy wrenched his attention from her and snatched at his knapsack. His fingers shook as he fussed with the buckle. Ginny’s stomach lurched. She tried again, eager to make amends for her rash judgment.

“I’m so sorry about his death.” There, it was out. What she’d been longing to say to him for days, in a quiet tone she’d forgotten she possessed. 

Malfoy’s features twisted into a grimace as he yanked at the knapsack straps. “I’m sorry, too,” he bit out.

If he’d lost Nott while out here on reconnaissance, maybe part of him blamed her. Ginny wanted to smack herself. Why had she said anything? She knew, better than most, what it was like to listen to fumbling apologies for the death of a loved one, a person they had neither known as well nor loved as much as she did. As though any of it had anything to do with them, and by getting it off of their chests, they could somehow alleviate her pain. 

She had not lost a lover; she’d lost a brother. But she had never been apologised to by someone she truly might have blamed for his death. Now, looking at Malfoy’s shaking hands and hearing the snap of his answer, Ginny felt worse than she had in a long time. 

“Malfoy,” she started. He gripped the knapsack and gave her a quick, piercing gaze, and Ginny’s words nearly failed her. “I… I’m sorry.”

Whatever retort she’d expected never came. Malfoy’s body stilled. Narrow shoulders crooked, and his hands settled in his lap.

Ginny looked down at her own hands. Maybe… Yes, they had more in common than she’d thought. Ever. How many nights had she sat up after Blaise and Seamus had retired, watching snow falling past some dirty hovel window and wondering who she could blame for Ron’s death? Harry had crossed her mind more than once, as had Hermione. Pansy Parkinson for not being strong enough under pressure. Moody for not being prepared. McGonagall for not protecting the school better. But she’d managed to dismiss them all in the end. There was only one person responsible for all this death, all the flight and fear, and that person was Voldemort.

In the end, wasn’t whatever—whomever—they had to give up worth it if it meant Riddle did not win? Wasn’t it?

“We never wanted this,” she muttered, still looking at her hands. “Harry never wanted his death. Or… Ron’s. If there was any other way…”

Malfoy remained silent. 

“But this needs to be done, doesn’t it? Or we’re finished. This—you, me, even Nott. And if it’s what needs to happen, no matter what Harry says when we get there, I’m going to do it. Because there are people who have given everything to get me here. I want to give what I can to this, something I can like myself for. Even if Harry doesn’t want me to.”

Malfoy snapped around to face her. Ginny was startled by the wild flare in his eyes. “Do you even _think_ about what he wants, Weasley?”

Suddenly she was seething, because Draco Malfoy had no right to look at her the same way he had in school, as though she were a stupid child incapable of seeing the true, hideous world. “It is what he wants! Even if he didn’t, he would do it anyway because Harry always has done that, _Malfoy._ He does what he has to do for the good of the whole, and that’s something you’ll never—Harry gives himself over so that everyone else can survive. He never asks for someone else to stand in his place.”

She expected fire, the railing and the fury that were Malfoy’s by right. But she could not have prepared herself for the way that fire died. Malfoy closed his eyes, turning just as Ginny understood the glitter at their edges. His throat bobbed.

“He wants this?”

Was that what he’d said? Ginny was so confused she couldn’t think. When she finally thought to look at Draco’s— _Draco’s?_ —face, he had wiped it clean. Her words of a moment before twisted her innards like some vile leviathan.

“Malfoy, I didn’t mean—” She took a deep breath. Why had she said those things to him? To prove a point? That his loss was for a good cause? There wasn’t any cause good enough and she knew that just as well as he did. “Not… Not Theodore. He wasn’t a sacrifice. Theodore’s death was an accident.”

He looked at her blankly. “What?”

Ginny licked her lips. But what she had to say was the truth and she owed him that at least. “If Harry had known what would happen, he would’ve been there in Nott’s place.”

“No.” Draco stood so fast Ginny jumped. He yanked his knapsack onto one shoulder and tugged his hood up. Ginny watched him, still reeling from the flurry of motion. Without looking at her, he strode to the edge of the rocks and peered around them.

When he turned back, ice had frosted his irises. “Let’s go.” And he walked from the shadows toward the woods. 

After a moment of dumbfounded silence, Ginny got to her feet and followed.

* * *

Harry was just closing the door to Luna’s chamber when Mad-Eye Moody came stumping down the hallway. The clack of his knobbly cane struck a staccato cadence with his peg-leg. Moody saw him and grunted.

“Good. You’re awake. She up for much longer?”

Harry glanced back at the door. The strains of Luna’s lute trembled from the walls and windows. “A few more hours.”

Moody wobbled the cane back and forth. “She looks more healthy every day, and more sickly every night.”

Harry nodded. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. “Today was difficult. Seamus Finnigan is nearby, pressing on the outer wards. Should be here tomorrow. She says someone else is coming tonight, though.”

Moody tapped his cane on the floor. “About time. Change of pace.”

Abruptly, the wards shifted. Luna’s voice hollowed and expanded in one quavering moment, and a strange shiver rippled down the corridor. 

“That’ll be whoever it is, then.” Moody snorted irritably. He started off down the hall again, clacking that tempo of his. “Send him in to see me after he’s eaten. And I want you in my office once Lovegood is asleep. Zabini’s started north again.”

Harry watched Mad-Eye move unsteadily around the corner, gripping his cane with a gnarled hand. It was luck that still had him on one leg. After Lestrange’s severing spell in York, no one had expected Moody to walk again without magical aid. But Madam Pomfrey was, of course, excellent at her trade. 

Harry had never been so thankful for that as he was these days.

Luna’s somber tune had turned playful. Harry headed down to the front doors to wait, speculating on the new arrival. There weren’t many people who changed Luna’s tune, and she had refused to give Harry a name, though she was quite capable of sensing not only the identity of anyone near the castle but also their magical prowess and their intentions. If she wouldn’t say, it was a friend, and if she was this happy… There was really only one person Harry could think of.

He perched on one of the ancient stone banisters at the bottom of the staircase. The air rippled more fervently as the newcomer passed through the second level of Luna’s ward, and Harry felt the vibration of the final threshold—just outside the doors—in the marrow of his bones. It had been some time since he’d felt another person’s arrival. 

Damn it if he wasn’t looking forward to it a little too eagerly.

With a straining groan, the oaken doors swung inward under Luna’s will, admitting the cloaked figure of Oliver Wood. Oliver stepped through, pushing back his hood and letting out a loud sigh. He slung a worn pack on the floor and stretched his arms toward the soaring ceiling. “Thank the Founders, it’s about bloody time.”

Harry grinned and hopped down from the banister. Wood caught sight of him. A delighted grin spread across his face.

“Potter! So polite to come meet me.”

“Least I could do for the man who taught me Quidditch.”

Oliver laughed, and Harry wrapped him in a hug, thumping him on the back. “Safe travels?”

Oliver smiled easily. “Not a shadow of a Death Eater. Well, maybe in London. But I’ve a feeling they’ve all cleared out of that area by now.”

Harry nodded, a thread of darkness twining in. But enough of that. He’d hear everything Oliver had to say soon enough. “Come on. I’m to feed you and then send you to Moody. Let’s see what the House-elves have got tonight.”

The kitchens were vast, deep in the earth. Moisture dripped through the stones along several of the walls, but the smell of must and mold did not linger. When they were seated at one of the tables, a plate of steaming rolls and shepherd’s pie in front of Oliver, Harry leaned on his elbows and listened as the other man outlined his journey.

“Can’t say I was glad to be in London again,” Oliver managed between bites. “Half the buildings have come down. The Muggle Centrepoint is a wreck. The Strand’s completely shut down. And Buckingham… Well. The whole street up to Buckingham doesn’t exist anymore.”

Harry frowned. “Diagon Alley?”

“Gringott’s is magically sealed. I don’t think anyone’s managed to get in, Death Eater or no. Not that it would do them any good. Money’s useless.” Oliver took a swig of pumpkin juice. “But you’ll be happy to know that the raid back in November was successful. Knockturn’s nothing but a pile of rubble, with the occasional cursed rock, of course.”

“And the Muggles?” Harry asked.

A spasm crossed Oliver’s face. “They’re… managing. Still living their lives as normal. Salazar, some _wizards_ are still trying to live their lives as normal there. I didn’t think it could still be done, even there.”

“London was always like that.” Harry shifted, straightened up. “What about the Ministry? Still holding up?”

Oliver snorted. “It’s for shite. I didn’t bother to go inside. I’d have either been interrogated or killed, depending on whether I ran into an Auror first, or a trapped Death Eater. And I’m still not sure which group would have done what. At least the Ministry’s still pretending they’re the law and order of Wizardom in there. Keeps some of Voldemort’s crowd out of our hair.”

“For a little while, at least.” Harry fell silent, listening to Oliver’s silverware clinking, and the drip-drip-drip of the water in the passageways beyond the kitchens. Luna’s voice was muted down here, an echo that ebbed and swelled with every note. Oliver’s expression relaxed into a dreamy, vague look.

“Gods, that’s beautiful,” he murmured.

Harry hummed his agreement.

“Has she said anything about Ginny, then?” Oliver asked a few moments later, and Harry focussed his wandering attention.

“Only that they’re on their way.”

“Hmm.” Oliver stabbed a piece of broccoli with his fork. “Be amazed if they don’t slaughter each other before they get here.”

Harry felt his back stiffen. “They’re adults. They can handle it.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, Harry, but this is Malfoy we’re talking about. And Ginny Weasley. I couldn’t picture a finer recipe for disaster if I tried.”

This time Harry couldn’t keep the glower at bay. “He’s trustworthy, Oliver. You think I’d leave Ginny in just anyone’s hands?”

Oliver stopped eating and just studied Harry for a long moment. “No, I don’t. But I’m not in the majority there.”

Harry scowled. “I’m not going to discuss this with you.”

“Harry—” Oliver sighed and raised his hands in defeat. “I know. Alright? I know, I know you trust him, and I believe he’s given you reason to, whatever that reason may be. But forgive me if old habits don’t die so quickly with me. Or with anyone else.”

“Oliver, Dumbledore trusted him first. Alright? That’s why I gave him a chance. And that should be reason enough for anyone.”

Oliver squinted, then nodded and looked down. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Look, Harry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I know how much you care for Ginny.”

Harry’s chest tightened. He struggled to push down the confused thoughts caroming through his head. “Malfoy’s one of the cleverer people I know. He won’t let anything happen to them.” He looked up sharply. “And Luna believes in him. You can ask her if you aren’t sure about me.”

Oliver’s lips quirked into a preoccupied smile. “I might just do that.”

With a shake of his head, Harry rose, and Oliver downed the last of his pumpkin juice and followed. “One thing’s for sure. The house-elves know how to cook a good meal, whatever else is happening.”

Harry chuckled as they headed up out of the kitchens. “Suppose I’d better take you to Moody, then.”

Oliver’s brow creased. “Actually… I was hoping to visit someone else before I do that.”

Harry found that tiny smile playing about the other man’s lips again. He studied Oliver. “She’s very much changed.”

Oliver’s eyes closed. “Yes. I know.”

They reached the front atrium moments later, and Harry gave Oliver a nudge toward the stairs with his elbow. “Go on. I’ll tell Moody I kept you.”

“Cheers, Harry.”

Harry patted Oliver’s shoulder. “Up the stairs. Second hall to the right, and straight on. She’ll guide you the rest of the way.”

He watched as Oliver ascended the staircase on swift steps, then turned and began to walk. Luna’s voice soared around him. Harry gave up and just followed his feet.

* * *

Sometime after Luna’s song had quieted and the castle lay steeping in darkness, Harry knocked on Moody’s door. The tell-tale _clunk_ of the Auror’s approach sounded within, and the door opened onto Moody’s sparsely furnished office. The light of a roaring fire crawled up the walls. Harry drew his chair as far away from the heat as he could.

He briefly filled Moody in on what Oliver had told him. Moody’s leading questions made it clear that Oliver had already summarised, and Moody meant to work out any details that may not have occurred to him but which Harry might have picked up on. But there was really very little to be gleaned from Oliver’s tale. The best piece of news Harry could give him—the best he’d heard all evening, in fact—was of the Weasley twins’ staggering success in monitoring the departure of the Death Eaters that had been stalking about London’s grimy alleyways.

“Gone after Malfoy, then, have they?” Moody squinted his good eye; the magical one flicked tirelessly back and forth. He lurched over to a high-backed chair and sank into it with a groan. 

Harry studied the worn armrest of his own chair. “Most likely. Only a few things important enough to get them all out of the city. They may’ve gone after Hermione and Hannah.”

It turned his stomach even though he’d pondered it enough for a thousand stomachaches. He didn’t want to think of Hermione out there in the rain and wind, never able to sleep for fear of being leapt upon, or Hannah, hiding in darker and danker shadows, running herself into the ground on pure adrenaline.

“You wanted to speak to me about Zabini?” he asked instead. Moody actually perked up, if anyone did that anymore. 

“Yes, Zabini. Lovegood says he’s begun travelling further north.”

Harry sat back. “Then that’s why she’s been so tired. If she’s tracking him. That’s a long way off.”

“She estimates five days if he doesn’t stop. They’ve no way of knowing where he is, Potter. Everyone privy to his whereabouts is in here.” Moody suddenly scowled. “As long as he didn’t tell Finnigan.”

“He didn’t. He knows better.”

“Yes, well, he’d better know better. He’s got a damned important task on his hands.”

Harry heard the jibe just as surely as he’d heard it aloud weeks ago, when he’d initially chosen Blaise for the mission. But how could he articulate to Moody that he trusted the fervor in Blaise’s eyes as he wrapped his tongue around the phrase of Parseltongue, the way his inflections became so perfect that even Harry had to blink? 

There had been no possible way to explain in the moldering study in Lupin’s now-abandoned home a year and a half ago. They’d all been there. Draco Malfoy had watched with eyes shadowed equally by lingering illness and anxiety as Harry, Marchbanks, and McGonagall sized up his three closest friends. First together, then separately, and then with Veritaserum. Pansy Parkinson had carried herself calmly that night, chin lifted, and told them nightmarish details of her family, hunted into poverty and terror by the Dark Lord. Blaise Zabini’s hatred for Voldemort had been solid enough to see. The betrayal and torture of his parents as blood traitors had reminded Harry forcibly of Neville.

And pale, thin Theodore Nott with those hooded eyes, offering information Harry might have killed for. The Notts had been high in Voldemort’s ranks, and Theodore had taken a long and excruciating fall in order to follow Malfoy out. And, Harry’d been assured once the two of them were finally alone in the study, should Harry ever betray Draco as Voldemort had done, Nott would see to it that he understood what torture really meant.

It had taken Harry long enough to convince himself of those three. It might take Moody forever. In the end, Draco had been the one to tip the scales. Even Minerva could sense the loyalty and devotion each held for the last Malfoy.

“Blaise will do it,” Harry said, gazing levelly at Moody. “He knows what’s at stake. I’ve explained it to him.”

Moody leaned toward him. His magical eye rolled crazily, feeding off his excitement. “If he succeeds, Voldemort will only have one Horcrux left. I expect you to take this seriously, boy.”

Harry glared back. “As I said: I explained it to him.”

Moody sat back without answering, but Harry knew he would not pursue the argument again tonight. It still surprised Harry how quickly his word had become final. And it scared him. Supposing he should make a mistake and watch them all follow him in some glorified crusade toward certain death?

“It’s on your head, then, Potter.” Moody’s eye rolled back as if trying to locate something inside his own skull. “We could always send Wood out after him.”

Harry snorted. “You know as well as I do that Oliver Wood wouldn’t stand a tenth of the chance that Blaise does of sneaking around Voldemort’s wards. There are advantages to being raised a Slytherin, you know.”

“Then, loyalty aside, Zabini’s chances of actually completing the mission are abysmal. They’ll find him in there. Either that or the snake will kill him herself. Potter, we’ve got to have that snake destroyed. Bad enough that I don’t even know what the last Horcrux is. I hope to Merlin that Albus has told you, at least?”

Harry sat back, feeling the familiar twinge in his chest. “He told me,” he murmured. “It’s well in hand.”

Both of Moody’s eyes swivelled to him. Harry met his gaze. “Don’t worry, Alastor. The last one needs to be dealt with at a certain time, and only then. That’s all.”

“Hmph. Just as long as it _is_ dealt with.”

“It will be.” Oh, yes. It would be. Dumbledore had spent a great deal of time convincing him of what was required of him, back when his portrait still hung in the Headmistress’ office at Hogwarts. Harry massaged the bridge of his nose. 

His self-conviction, unfortunately, still needed to be reaffirmed every time he thought about it. 

“I expect to be informed as to exactly what that Horcrux is when the time grows closer, Potter.” Moody fixed Harry with another piercing stare.

“Of course, Alastor,” he said, smirking.

Moody _hmph_ ed again and got up. He stumped creakily about the room, back in forth in front of the hearth.

“Sir, are you feeling well?”

Moody sighed. “Confound this leg. Damned castle’s too cold.”

“Yes, it is. Pity Luna can’t do anything about that as well.” Harry smiled, fond. “But she’s doing enough as it is.”

“Says Finnigan’s on his way, does she?” Moody’s magical eye rolled toward Harry.

“Arriving tomorrow or thereabouts.”

“You tell him he’s got to go back out when he gets here. I’ve another task for him.”

“I expect…” Harry grimaced. “He’ll want to be kept occupied, rather than just sitting around.”

 _He’ll will just worry over Blaise,_ he thought wretchedly. _And I’ve practically sent Blaise on his death mission._

“Good. Tell Lovegood to start calling them all back tomorrow, then. It’s time we brought them home.”

Harry nodded, already lost to his own thoughts. The final surprise would be seeing who actually made it to the castle, and who faded into the threadwork of the war. The fire crackled and Moody continued to pace. 

_Clunk, clunk, clunk._


	9. The Storm Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A personal favorite chapter. (Sorry for the wait... I have been a little wrapped up in my original writing. Lots and lots of goals and deadlines.)

**originally posted 4/10/07**

 

**The Battle of York**

The final Muggle awakening to the existence of magic was ugly. It began, as it had for months, with the Slingers.

Potions—incendiary, explosive, blinding—in bottles made of such thin glass that they cast rainbows on the earth, lifted with a fusion of summoning and levitation. The wand was whirled overhead, so fast the bottle became a mere blur. Just when the speed was greatest, the spells were released and the projectile flew.

In the beginning, surprise had been more than enough. But as the Death Eaters developed better shielding spells, the potency of each vial became horrifying, a delicate balance perfected by the surviving experts on either side. Certain potions could be directed at certain people over short distances, provided one knew in advance who would be there.

The Order’s information concerning York was suspect, but too menacing to ignore. The morning of the battle saw the Death Eaters completely surprised by the arrival of numerous Aurors. For two hours, the Order succeeded in preventing Voldemort’s destruction of the heavy wards protecting the Muggle sections of the city. But as the day drew on, the Death Eaters’ superior numbers proved insurmountable. They turned the Aurors gradually and pressed inward toward the city.

The wide-spread ramifications of the Battle of York were more devastating than the battle itself, however. The resulting rift in magic set off a chain reaction that extended across the Western Hemisphere, disintegrating shielding spells worldwide and spilling the Wizarding war into Muggle awareness.

~

**York, April 1998**

When the shields broke, Draco Malfoy was gasping for breath in the shadow of the inner city wall. The Muggles in the streets behind stopped in their tracks and stared, their faces a mix of surprise and curiosity. A teenaged girl dropped her umbrella into a puddle and pointed with one finger.

But when the first detonation spell singed the stones of the gateway tower seconds later, they started screaming.

Draco ducked out of the way, turned and caught the first black-robed figure through the gateway with a stunning spell, then watched as wizards poured backward through the arch, wands flaring, oblivious to their new audience. A Death Eater shot past Draco overhead, caught in the red threads of a retracting spell, and somewhere behind him, a woman began to shriek hysterically.

A Reductor Curse blasted a huge slab of the wall to pieces, sending chunks of granite into the midst of the gaping Muggles. Death Eaters and their Order counterparts spilled through the smoking gap, and chaos erupted in the Muggle streets.

Draco heard a wailing, growing louder and louder, but he never saw what caused it. He could only throw himself to the ground as a second section of the wall disintegrated. The remainder of the spell slammed into a building to the left, taking the entire facade with it. A Muggle woman sat amidst the rubble, blood dribbling in rivulets down her cheeks, as the others in the building fled around her. The remnants of a tea cup still dangled from her fingers as she stared at where the wall had been.

Now people were dashing out of buildings, throwing open windows and calling down to those below, questions which went unnswered. The tide of screams rose in Draco’s ears. Another building toppled, but a well-cast charm tossed the falling masonry safely aside. Draco saw Shacklebolt, wand upraised, horrified dismay across his features. He gestured frantically at the Muggles, but the whine of another incoming spell drowned out whatever he shouted. 

A Death Eater released a flood of arrows from his wand and Draco threw up charms instinctively, felling most of the deadly hail before it gained momentum. But several of the arrows zipped past him, and Draco whirled, the words of wards dying on his lips. A Muggle man running full tilt was caught by the green blaze of a Killing Curse and pitched headfirst into the earth. More arrows hummed viciously around his body. 

The screams began anew.

Draco spun back around. His brain had not quite caught up with him yet. They knew? They couldn’t know. There were shields and charms woven all over York. It was one of the biggest Wizarding communities in Britain, and had been for hundreds of years. The Muggles couldn’t know.

But the cries and shrieks behind him said otherwise. Some primal part of his mind recognised their terror. Felt it with them. Pounding feet, utter astonishment… Things that were _just not possible_ happening right in front of their eyes. 

But if Pansy had been right—and he knew she was—then this was exactly what the Death Eaters had been aiming for.

More and more robed figures flowed into the city. It was all the Order members could do to protect themselves; very few of them managed to cast shielding charms over the fleeing Muggles. Killing Curses hummed through the air, felling another man, then a woman. A sobbing girl. 

Draco lunged out of the way as a burst of purple sang past him, and bit out a hurling hex at the Death Eater who had cast it. The woman smacked into the wall and slumped sideways, her neck at an ugly angle, bright hair spilling out of her hood. But another Death Eater scrambled through the gap to take her place, and Draco’s wand faltered.

 _There are too many,_ a voice whispered in his head. _Too many._

The sounds of battle suddenly went soft. A wave of acrid smoke rolled over him and when it cleared, there were more Muggle bodies in the emptying streets, Death Eaters heading down crooked alleyways, and another splinter of light through a new break in the city wall. Draco found himself staring at the dust-covered figure of a Muggle boy, standing in the rubble of what had once been a three-story building. 

Couldn’t have been more than twelve.

The boy seemed oblivious to the noise around him. Liquid brown irises stared at Draco. Draco shuddered violently. Innocence was being wrenched from this boy, right before his eyes.

With a rolling _crack,_ sound returned—an instant before Draco was knocked off his feet by a wall of heat. He hit the ground several yards from where he’d been, only just managing to keep hold of his wand. The area inside the wall was teeming with Death Eaters. The few Order wizards who had made it through had been pushed back and were struggling to hold the shields they had cast. Draco got to his feet.

And then, on the other side of the wall, a rushing roar swept into his ears; the icy tingle of Potter’s magic—something immense—slammed into the stones. Several agonised screams sounded. Cruciatus, perhaps, among whatever else.

The wave of Death Eaters through the wall trickled to a halt.

“Go, go!” Shacklebolt shouted. “Go after them, for Godric’s sake, _stop them before they get into the inner city!”_

An Order member—younger than Draco—tore past him, her robe flapping behind her. She shouted, and piercing yellow flames rocketed out of her wand. Draco saw two Death Eaters down the main thoroughfare writhing and shrieking as the flames engulfed them. But there were more, dashing into alleys, flinging up wards to protect themselves. Heading for the oldest part of the city.

Another blinding ray whistled over his head, accompanied by the controlled chanting of Hestia Jones. Draco ran.

It could have been hours, or minutes. The winding cobblestone streets had long since become a maze. The buildings plunged the narrows into purple shadow as he crept along. He could hear the sounds of magic, but did not know which direction they came from. Always, always he turned a corner and came across a smoking hole, the limp body of a Death Eater or the staggering form of an Order member. On Stonegate Street, a Muggle woman ran smack into him from an open doorway, letting out a cry and pushing past without even seeming to see him. 

He found the streets blocked entirely near the city wall and resorted to climbing the steps, hunched low, breath rasping in his ears. The remains of St. Mary’s Abbey, still wreathed in fog, were charred, with dark splashes of something Draco did not want to think about across the lower stones. He could see bodies in the soupy mist. The abbey was the focal point of the wards protecting the west side of the city; Draco felt no prickle of magic as he skirted by it and descended the wall again. Faint booms echoed further within the old city. From time to time, Draco heard the clack of running feet, the cries of people. But he saw no one.

The two churches along St. Saviourgate were silent. The glass had been blasted from the windows and there was an ugly spatter along the wall of the first. Draco stepped over the body of a Muggle and halted in the shadows, wary of the quiet. Dust tickled his throat. He shifted his wand to his left hand and wiped his palm on his robes.

Heard the spell coming before he felt it.

It sliced a swath across his back, spinning him round and slamming him into the church wall. Draco cried out, scrabbling behind him. He could already feel the wetness seeping through his shirt. His blood began a slow, ominous thud in his ears, but through it he could hear footsteps. Several people approaching from farther off, but one person coming down the rubbly road toward him. Draco crawled around the corner of the church. A rumbling _boooom_ grated through the stones beneath him and he heard shouts.

Any second the Death Eater would turn the corner and find him. His back was a hot expanse of… not pain. Not yet. Just heat. A thought bounced through Draco’s mind: he would go into shock and bleed out from whatever the fuck had been done to him, if his assailant didn’t find him and kill him first. The wall of another building, some indeterminate distance in front of him, swung crazily in his vision. Draco drew a shuddering breath against the vertigo. He gripped his wand between slick fingers and recalled the magic of the killing spell to his body.

But another voice, other words, came first from around the corner. “Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!” And then, an exasperated afterthought: “You fucking _bastard.”_

Draco had time to inhale, to recognise the voice, before someone turned the corner. Harry Potter, so covered in dust he was grey, glasses still clean from some charm, and a short, shallow-looking gash running up his left wrist. He was holding a second wand, long and thin and black, which he shoved into his back pocket as he knelt.

“Malfoy, did it—”

“Back. My back,” Draco stuttered.

Potter’s hands were already at his collar, working the clasp of his cloak free and shoving it off his shoulders. Potter eased Draco’s shirt from his waist band, then hissed. Draco looked down and saw dark red soaking through the filthy fabric. Potter rolled the shirt up and away, then fumbled for his wand and cast a series of clotting spells over the area. Pain bit afresh and Draco let a grunt slip past his lips. Potter frowned. Flicked his wand again. A tendril of numbness slithered down Draco’s side like cool water and began to expand.

“So,” Draco began, then faltered, unsure of what to say.

“So.” Potter’s attention was only for his task. The warm drift of blood down Draco’s side, as well as Potter’s hand swiping over it, was distracting.

“Pansy’s information was correct.”

Potter nodded, still attending to the wound. He pulled his own cloak from his shoulders. There was a ripping sound. Potter’s arms encircled his waist and drew away, and then the coarse material of Potter’s blue cloak was cinched tight to his flesh. Draco gasped, and felt himself begin to shake. Shock.

“She’s good for it,” he managed, trying to keep his teeth from clacking. “As you can see.”

Potter’s hands paused and he looked at Draco for a moment. Draco could suddenly feel all five of Potter’s fingertips and his palm against his skin. 

“I know.” A tiny smile lit Potter’s features. “I know she is.”

Draco nodded. Kept nodding. Potter looped the strip of his cloak around him again and tied it with deft fingers. “It’s long, Malfoy. I don’t know if this will hold it.”

“How—” Draco swallowed. “How long?”

“At least two feet.”

Draco couldn’t feel it. Just the growing numbness, and the tight material of Potter’s cloak against his heaving ribs. “Deep?”

“I don’t think so. Surface cut. Like a razor.”

“Razor?”

Potter’s green eyes flicked to his and held. “It’ll bleed a lot.” He groped behind himself with a bloodied hand and passed something to Draco. “Here. Break it.”

Draco took the black wand in trembling fingers. Dark magic coursed out of it; the constant ache of the tattoo on his left arm burned into fiery relief and he gritted his teeth. He gripped the wand tightly, lifted his knee, and cracked the wood squarely in half over it. The wand made an odd whistling sound, and then there were just two halves of a stick in Draco’s hands. Potter rose to his feet. 

“Can you get up?”

Draco reached up with one hand to gain purchase on the wall, staggered upright, and felt Potter’s arms under his own. _“Slow._ You’ll break the clots.”

“Can’t feel it,” he whispered. 

A spasm crossed the Potter’s dirty face. “Trust me. Go slowly.”

Draco took a step and staggered, his vision rocking. Potter caught him, settling him against the wall again, and Draco clenched his eyes shut. “There’s a… Potter, there’s…”

“What?” Fingers gripped his shoulder. “Are you—Is there another wound?”

He gestured with the hand that held the broken wand. “Spell. You can… can use their wands. Before you break them, you can use them. Counter… counter-something. Explosive.”

A dry chuckle. “Nott showed me.”

Draco looked up at last. “So you trust him, too.”

“I trust what he did to Dolohov two weeks ago.”

A grinding boom sounded from several streets away, and the ground shuddered beneath their feet. Potter’s eyes met his for a surreal moment. The ground continued to vibrate. 

“Shields are going,” Draco whispered. “Gods, they’re all…” 

He heard shouts; dueling spells one or two streets over. Potter gripped him, easing him off the wall. “Come on. Not safe here.”

Draco stumbled away from the stone. Potter slid an arm under his and pulled him out into the street.

* * *

**The forest, present day, 1999**

Draco fidgeted against the tree trunk yet again, scanning the forest as far as the gloom would allow. It was midday, and drizzly; the rain pattered like a muted drum on the canopy of leaves, seeping through to soak the soil. Except for the sound of the water, the woods were quiet, but Draco’s nerves were not. He couldn’t sit still. Something just felt… off. And bloody hell, there was no reason for it that he could see. He’d kept an extra close eye on their surroundings and an extra tight clamp on any discussions Weasley had felt the need to engage in. She’d long since given up; the last few hours had been waited out in tight-lipped silence. 

There was no magical tingle, no movement in the corner of his eye. Nothing but the freezing rain. He should be welcoming the silence, the lack of arguing between him and the woman sitting a stone’s throw away, clutching her cloak with white fingers. But silence only gave him time to think. 

He tugged his aching eyes away from the impenetrable gloom, and turned his face up to the rain. As before, he did not feel cleansed. He would only feel that once he’d reached their destination and given over his charge. Then perhaps he could just wash himself of this whole mistake.

It was an enticing thought: to simply walk away from Potter and the rest of them, maybe not physically, but mentally at the very least. To face everything with the cool outer facade he’d seen the Boy Saviour wear often enough during this war.

But he suspected he wouldn’t be able to manage it.

Even if Potter had not stepped in and given him debt after debt to pay back, his own conscience wouldn’t let him gain distance from the mire in which he’d lodged himself. Draco pressed two fingers to his forehead to stem the building headache. If only he’d been a solitary prisoner in that mire, it would have been much easier to drag himself out.

The self-loathing rose up in his throat again. How could he have pulled three others down with him? And not just any three others. Had it been some random wizard or witch—but there was nothing random about who had entered this swamp with him, and who had finally drowned there.

He was two for three now. 

_Bloody hell._ When had Pansy, Theodore and Blaise become statistics?

Draco wondered when Ginny Weasley would become a statistic to him. Why hadn’t she already? She should have been the first; it was much easier to remove someone’s humanity if one already disliked the person. But, fuck it all, he wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It wasn’t enough anymore, being a Weasley. The name had been synonymous with _hate_ once. And then he had bloody well gotten to know her a little better, and that, apparently, had been his first mistake.

 _But you’re still a fucking statistic,_ Draco thought, studying the dull gleam of her hair, the streaks of dirt on her face and hands. _You’re Potter’s way out of this. You’re everyone’s way out. And I’m just the enabler._

Well, why not? He’d already facilitated the death of the only girl left in his life after Hogwarts. He might as well help Ginny Weasley along, too, in his bitter, well-meaning fashion.

Pansy, with all her snootiness and pureblooded self-preservation, had been the first to accept what would later turn out to be her death sentence. Theodore Nott, who had the skills to hoodwink all of the Dark Lord’s ranks, was much too well-known to Voldemort to spirit his way past, and every Death Eater in existence had been taught that the only good place for Blaise Zabini was nailed to his family’s door as a blood traitor. Pansy Parkinson, of wealth and opportunity—and a distinct history of assimilating herself into the pureblood heirarchy—was the only viable spy left of the four of them. Potter had known it immediately, and Draco... Draco had not argued.

Now, staring at the signature hair of the only blood traitors he had ever truly acknowledged as a child, he wished he had.

Pansy had done her duty, even when most of her intelligence had been scrapped as too risky to act upon. She was a pureblood, even if she was of a lesser family, and a Slytherin, and despite the fact that her family had been driven out of house and home and finally country by a vindictive megalomaniac, she was never to be fully trusted by most of the Order. It was the same with the rest of them. Only Potter had come round completely, and Draco had no idea of the strings he had to pull to get Blaise into the fold, to let Theodore have his ancient wand back. To send Pansy into the very mouth of hell.

He’d thought for an entire year that perhaps she would make it back out.

The Death Eaters left her on the crumbling steps of Hogwarts as the castle burned around them all, mockingly protected from the fires by a shielding spell: a symbol of the conquered traitor. Exactly when they’d found out about her was impossible to know, but Draco had seen the spell damage on her skin, the bruises and wounds that were visible. They’d not only conquered their traitor, they’d pulled the information out of her and discarded her for the Order to see. To blame. They’d cleaned her up and left her alive to bear the shame of not having been strong enough.

There had been no blood on Pansy’s body, but Draco still considered it to be all over his hands.

The ones who could had managed to escape the inferno that had been their school. Draco had dragged Pansy off the steps and into his arms, hearing her whimpers of apology, terror, and tangled dementia in his ear. She’d passed out by the time he got her to St. Mungo’s and saw the damage that had been done to the entire Order that night.

It hadn’t been enough, holding her seizing hand and trying to explain why he’d gotten her into this, wondering if she could hear him, all the right thoughts, the evil versus the good, they couldn’t just sit by and watch the Death Eaters ravage the world, _thank you for joining me in my quest…_ and knowing even as he spoke that it was mostly a lie, that he’d never, ever told anyone his real, shameful reasons for seeking the Order out that night so long ago.

And before he knew it, he was sitting at Pansy’s bedside watching her bleed out subdermally from the remnants of an appalling spell, until her skin was so white he couldn’t believe she was still alive. And then later, blood that was much more tangible, soaking into his clothing in a reddening puddle in some forgotten forest... Theodore’s blood. And forgive him if that blood made him feel more like a murderer than Pansy’s had.

It was different when you’d fallen asleep in those arms, when you’d tasted that sweat and those moans, held that body quivering on the edge, and finally been the one to gently push it over. When you’d heard sacrosanct words you could not return. When you’d done all of it while picturing someone else.

Draco pressed a hand to his eyes. How long had their clocks been ticking? Had he signed Theodore’s death warrant as well, just by existing? By being his friend during school? By becoming his lover—

He swallowed the burn in the back of his throat and tried to focus again on Pansy. But there was no solace there, of course; just a different sort of pain. Perhaps they’d known for weeks, had her locked down in some cell somewhere, extracting the Order’s secrets by the hour while the rest of the world prepared for Christmas celebrations. Perhaps they’d known from the beginning. 

Pansy had managed to sneak them information for so very long. Draco had his suspicions. He’d often wondered if someone close had not kept Pansy safe for as long as he could, just as he’d kept Draco safe that last night of his horrendous sixth year. Just as he’d kept him safe after.

Weasley cleared her throat softly and Draco looked up, glad of the distraction. But his counterpart was not paying attention to him, intent upon whatever was of interest in her pack. She’d already rummaged through it three times as far as Draco could tell, and he was suddenly struck by the question of what _she_ was trying to distract herself from.

His family was gone. Was hers? He remembered the constant tension when his mother had still been alive, how he’d been unable to focus, to think, without endlessly coming back to where she might be, what she might be doing. Where his father was. 

He realised Ginny Weasley had yet to say a word about her family.

Had she ceased to worry? To hope? Was she only thinking about her own predicament? Draco squinted at her thoughtfully. He’d told himself what he expected to see before he’d even reached the cathedral where she waited, but there was very little left to remind him of the mischievous, insulting girl he’d known at Hogwarts. She still had a temper, obviously. And she still disliked him… but he didn’t think it was hatred anymore. She didn’t trust him, but then, people who trusted easily these days found themselves strung out on the end of a Death Eater’s wand. Had he ever really given her a reason to trust him? He’d given Harry Potter plenty of reasons, but it had never been important to him to make sure she felt safe with him. 

Well. He didn’t feel entirely safe around her either. It was a fair trade. And if she’d matured somewhere in the hubbub of killing and massacring and magical destruction, who was he to judge? He still hadn’t matured enough to handle his role in this conflict, his purpose here in these woods. He covered it with lies about wanting to do the right thing.

The Weaslette _was_ doing the right thing. And she wasn’t complaining. Draco scowled down at his hands. They had all been forced to grow up before they were ready, to do things they never would have had the courage to do.

The night after he’d come to Grimmauld Place and sought Potter’s assistance, before that nightmare of an interrogation, he’d come face to face Ronald Weasley for the first time since sixth year, and he hadn’t been ready for it. He hadn’t been ready for much of anything. They were alone in his borrowed bedroom, Potter grilling him for details about the enchantments around his family’s library. His head was swimming, tilting, and the door had burst open.

Weasley strode into the room, much taller than he had any right to be, tossed his sweater over the sofa, and froze. A furious twist struggled over his features and he opened his mouth. Draco waited dully for the outburst.

But Weasley’s mouth snapped shut again. He beckoned to Potter, and they moved out of earshot, Weasley’s rapid greeting too soft for Draco to hear. Potter answered and Weasley’s blue eyes fixed on Draco from across the room.

Calculating. There was no room for compassion in his gaze, but Draco had not expected that. Just new information, clicking into place.

But Weasley left eventually, having said nothing at all to Draco. It was the first time Draco truly realised how the war had changed people. Himself included, though he hadn’t thought of it in that context until then.

It was also then that he realised just how much sway Harry Potter held.

Someone his own age had been called upon to lead. Draco shivered. 

Potter might have used whatever pull he had to demand this sacrifice of Ginny Weasley, this surrender of self. But Ginny was right once again: Harry Potter would never force this on her, even if it meant the difference between Voldemort ruling the world or not. He had to want it too, the bastard. Didn’t they just make one big happy fucking family?

Draco’s fingers began to ache; he found he was clutching his cloak so tightly his knuckles were stained white. Suddenly he was so furious he could barely see. Why was it his responsibility? Tears pricked at the backs of his eyes. He had no desire to see Potter again, to watch the gratitude unfold in his eyes when he dumped Ginny Weasley into his arms. It wasn’t Draco’s duty or his place, and he’d be damned if he sat here and stared at that disgusting pity in the Weaslette’s expression, had his memories rifled by her apologies about Theodore. She had never known Theodore. She had no right to speak to Draco about his pain; she was going to be bound to the love of her meager life and she’d never know what it felt like to have him die in her arms, because Perfect Potter wouldn’t _die_ that easily, it wasn’t his way. No, he’d rise up like a phoenix and save the whole damn world, and then, if Draco were still alive after the dust had settled, they’d come to him hand in hand and express their overwhelming gratitude, and he’d just stand there and nod, and never, ever have the chance to scream out the grief and agony that was building, roiling, twisting inside him even now.

Fucking, fucking Potter.

Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye like he’d always done? Why couldn’t he hate them both for being who they—

Abruptly, Draco felt the change in the air. The forest had gone silent in a way he couldn’t define, but—he stiffened, squinting again into the trees. It looked the same as it had. Nothing moved, nothing that he could see, but…

The ripple skated over his left forearm like sparks. Draco gasped before he could stop himself, and Ginny Weasley looked up. 

“What is it?”

Draco rose, eyes fixed on the press of trunks directly ahead. The pat-pat of the rain was deafening, beating a tattoo against his heartbeat. Weasley did not so much as twitch. 

He felt it again, as faint as a dream, crawling along his inner arm.

“Salazar,” he hissed.

Ginny’s eyes cheeks paled several shades. She stood, grabbing her pack strap. “Oh, gods—”

Draco slashed a hand through the air and she broke off, staring with him into the gloomy tangle. Still nothing. But he could _feel_ them, pricking with their magic. A steady burn under his Mark. Close. How close, he had no way of knowing short of using his own wand, and that would be suicide. But the vibration was getting stronger. 

Apparition. Subtle seeking spells. 

He gestured, not taking his eyes from the trees. She came quickly and silently, tugging her hood up over her head. Draco did the same, cursing his bright hair. Had they seen them yet? How many were there? He reached back and brushed Ginny’s shoulder with his fingers. “This way.”

She fell into step just behind him, and they crossed the leaf-littered ground as quickly as they could. He looked back once and saw that she had her hands tucked into her cloak. Not out, grabbing onto branches to help her passage or flaking bark off as they went. An unfamiliar swell of admiration fluttered in his chest. Thunder growled as if urging them on. The bases of the trees were wreathed in a rising mist, and the rain increased, slipping through the branches to strike the earth. Draco blinked water from his eyes and felt the magic ripple again. 

He stopped, and Ginny halted behind him. Lightning flashed, throwing the angles of the forest into sharp relief. He heard the thunder roll, and saw Ginny looking back over her shoulder. One of the wayward shadows in the depths shifted.

He found her forearm before he even registered what he’d seen. The flicker of dark cloth… maybe. “Close.”

He slid his free hand into his pocket and drew out one of the obsidian Minis-ports. It would leave the tiniest of trace signatures when it went off. They might sense it, they might not. He heard his companion swallow once.

“Move,” she said.

They made their way through the leaning trunks, inching across crackling expanses of leaves. It wasn’t for some minutes that he picked out the voices. Ginny made a breathless sound behind him and froze. Draco backed them into a stand of aspen, heart climbing into his throat. He still could not see anything, but damn it, he could hear them, crunching through the carpet of bracken, murmuring in low voices. Ginny’s breathing sped up, but she remained perfectly still, pressed against the nearest trunk. Draco listened until he picked out which direction they were heading, and then moved as swiftly as he dared away from the sounds.

They nearly stumbled across the path of a Death Eater a few moments later. Draco grabbed Ginny’s arm and pulled her down to the forest floor, then crawled into a tumble of bushes. The dark figure passed just in front of them, moving steadily until the forest swallowed him up once more. But there were others in the gloom, circling, only yards away. Before, and behind. Their wands gleamed under a sheen of rain.

There were so many. Surely he hadn’t been that careless, not to sense them approaching. How long had they been shadowing the two of them? Days? Hours? The thought of them watching through the trees as he and Weasley slept, ate, argued—just _biding_ their time—made him sick.

No. It wasn’t the Death Eaters’ way to watch, to trail and then pounce. A simple, sudden Killing Curse would have been the way of it. So they hadn’t located them yet. But they would soon, in moments. He heard the rustle of robes over the earth and the squelch of boots against the soggy loam.

A terrible calm rolled through Draco’s mind as his options became clear. He gripped his pack in a sweaty palm. It had come to this at last. And he wasn’t even fighting the idea. Something in him protested feebly, reminded him of the injustice, that he didn’t deserve this sort of end, it wasn’t his responsibility for fuck’s sake, but Draco silenced it. He waited until the nearest Death Eater had gone nearly out of view, then turned to face Weasley.

“Listen,” he whispered, “because you’ll need to remember. The forest edge should be one hundred yards to your left. When you get there, find the ridge running north and get behind it, then follow it as far as it goes. From there, the castle is to the northwest. It’s in the open on one of those plains, so you’ll have to run. I don’t know how far, but Lovegood will know you’re coming.”

Ginny stared at him, mouth open. “What?” she said hoarsely.

Draco drew a deep breath, trying to keep his nerves in check. The crackle of footsteps was coming back. “You’ll have a few minutes at least. As much as I can give you. They won’t expect me to be on my own and they haven’t any idea where we’re going, so if you keep _quiet_ about it, they won’t follow you.”

Ginny’s head began to shake in slow sweeps. “No. Fuck, _no._ I’m not going to just—What kind of person do you think I am, Malfoy?” Her voice rose to a thready squeak, but her eyes sparked. Draco gave her a quick, hard shake.

“Don’t be an idiot, Weasley!” He clenched his hand around the Minis-port. “You have to get there. There’s no fucking option about that. If you don’t arrive, we lose this bloody war. You do not get to be the selfless hero this time!”

Ginny’s eyes widened, and for the first time since they’d stopped, Draco saw the fear in them. The helplessness. He stilled, watching the play in her face. She studied him for a tense moment, so close that her exhalations skated over his face. And then she nodded. 

Draco let out the breath he’d been holding and grabbed his pack again. “Run. Along the hill. And for Salazar’s sake, go quietly.”

“Where will you be?” But it was a lifeless question; she already knew the answer.

“Distracting them.”

She was staring at him again. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and avoided her eyes. Sod it, they were wasting time. The Death Eaters’ voices were fully audible now, but for the life of him, Draco could not concentrate on their exact words. He licked his lips and tasted metallic rain. “Go north,” he muttered, nodding in the correct direction.

“Malfoy—”

She stopped. The freckles stood out against her skin. The look in her eyes was resigned, but still pleading. He opened his pack and pulled her replacement wand out, thrusting it into her hand. “Try not to use it.”

She nodded, closing her fingers around the wand. Draco waited another moment, listening to the footsteps, and then rose and crept in the direction they’d come. There was no sign of their pursuers. He chanced a look back and saw Weasley moving in the opposite direction, hunkered low to the ground. She threw him a glance full of unspoken words, and he turned away. When he looked again, the mist had swallowed her up. 

He took a second to gather his wits. His hands were shaking with what he’d just done. And he couldn’t let it hit him. Weasley had no time for his weakness; every second, the Death Eaters got closer to discovering her, and if they did—Draco closed his eyes, sought for air. 

Was he really going to die for _her?_

No—no. No time for petty stupidity. This wasn’t about her, this was about the rest of the world. He’d already allowed more people than he wanted to count die for him, for his cause, which only Theodore had suspected in the end. If this was his fate, then he would damn well meet it as they had, and he’d do it without faltering or turning it into a personal crusade. He was going to draw them away from Ginny Weasley, right onto his own back if he had to, and he’d keep them occupied until he was no longer capable of it.

And give Harry Potter a chance to save those who were left. To remember him in a better light. It was poetic, really.

Draco began to move again, less carefully. No magic; they’d know immediately that it was a trick. But they could hear, as he could. And they could obviously track. He’d just make it easier for them. 

He deliberately stepped on a stick, cursing the rain for soaking the wood and muting the crack. Was it his imagination that the eerie voices around him paused? Draco skirted a small grove of trees and tried to glimpse the moving figures. Salazar, but he had no idea where they were. He hated not being able to see them. The sensation of being hunted crept over his shoulders.

He pushed his hood down off of his hair and started forward again.

For several minutes, he wound his way through the woods, going in circles, edging incautiously nearer and farther from the voices. Again he pondered their numbers, wondered if any of them were trailing Ginny instead. She must have made the edge of the forest by now, and located the ridge. The castle could not be too far off. He’d estimated only a few hours of travel during the night, provided they hurried. He didn’t let himself think about what would happen if she never found the castle, if Lovegood did not call her in. He still didn’t understand it fully; the ward Lovegood embodied had come from the Malfoy libraries, but it was ancient and there had been no time to study magic in the last few years, aside from newer, deadlier offensive spells. But there was no way under the sun or moon that the castle could be found if Lovegood did not allow—

He barely saw the black robe before something clouted him over the temple. Draco fell, white light searing across his vision. The world tilted dizzily, and for a moment he could only shut his eyes and press his head to the earth. Couldn’t think. Could only hurt and hurt.

“Well,” said a voice somewhere above him. “It _is_ good to have found you.”

Draco blinked, trying to clear his vision. The wet earth soaked into his clothing. He could smell the pungent scent of it. He gazed upward, somewhat cross-eyed, and made out a blurry black shape leaning over him. He hissed and jerked up, clenching the Minis-port, but felt the cold, blunt tip of a wand pressing hard into his throat. Draco froze.

“I don’t think so.” Female, tinted with a dead quality that lanced through his vertigo. “Hold still for a moment, Malfoy.”

When his vision righted itself, he didn’t recognise her. Honey-blonde, with dark, dark eyes and a sneer twisting thin lips. She was younger by at least two years. Barely out of school, if there had been any school to go to anymore. Draco swallowed and felt the wand shove into his Adam’s apple. The girl’s eyes glittered. “Where’s your wand?”

“Fuck you,” he spat. She caught him a stinging slice across the cheek with the tip of her wand, and then thrust it against his throat once more. 

“You’ve no idea how much I prayed I’d be the one to catch you. Get up. Slowly.”

Draco rose to his feet. His trousers were a muddy mess, his pack crushed into the soil. His cheek felt as if it were on fire. She sneered at him.

“Where’s your friend?”

Draco met her sneer with one of his own. She stepped back, leveling her wand at him. The tip hovered an inch in front of his chest. “You pompous bastard.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said as calmly as he could manage. Her jaw clenched.

“Oh, you’ve gone beyond that, _Malfoy.”_ He saw raw hatred, bubbling up behind the fury in her eyes. “Killed my sister at St Alban. You fucking blood traitor.” Her hand flicked down and she jabbed her wand viciously into his left forearm.

Draco forced himself not to wince. Wondered if he could jam the Minis-port into her hole of a mouth before she killed him.

“Now. Where is Weasley?” the girl snapped. “Don’t tell me you killed her, too?”

Draco smiled at her. His emotions weren’t quite working properly; everything had a strange haze of peace around it. He felt completely numb, unable to process the danger he knew he was in.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he countered, judging the distance between them. If he could just surprise her— 

As if she knew what he was thinking, she stepped back and snicked her wand up to point at his head. “All I have to do is cast one spell,” she warned. “One little spell and they’ll be all over you like the carrion that you are.”

“Do it, then. Bring them all. And when they’re here, I’ll tell you how good it felt to slaughter your sister.”

Her face contorted. Her wand hand began to shake with the force of it. Draco wondered if she would actually slip and let fly some spell. He had no memory of her sister, or of anyone in particular in St Alban. The battle had been a mess and it was just as likely that it hadn’t been him at all. But if he could goad her into summoning all the Death Eaters to them—

“They’ll be along soon enough,” she gritted out.

Movement in the forest behind her caught Draco’s eye. He made out another robed figure, coming between the trees. An unexpected shard of fear spiked through him.

 _Too soon._ Despite the logic of having them all come to him, he wasn’t ready for it. His stomach threatened to clamp up on him and he swallowed the bile that rose. He was going to die. Not here, but elsewhere, soon. They would take what they needed and make an example of him. Lucius Malfoy’s son, but not on Lucius Malfoy’s side. The punishment would take ages.

He wondered how long it would take them to break him; hours, days, weeks, until that moment when he spilled his secrets like so much blood. As long as it took to break Pansy? He had no idea how long that had been.

“Where is she, Malfoy?” 

Draco dragged his attention back. “You’ve obviously got the upper hand. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Shut up and tell me where she is!” the girl shrieked at him. Draco did wince then. Surely the sound would bring the rest. He found the figure in the forest again. Black cloak, and something dangling from one side, like a bulbous limb. 

But the person wasn’t moving very quickly; he or she was creeping toward them. Draco forgot himself and just stared. What he’d thought to be a grotesquely shaped arm was actually something carried in one of the person’s hands, long and thick.

He looked back at the Death Eater and saw her smirking. “I could call them if you like,” she said nastily.

“That won’t… be necessary,” he forced out, trying to work through the confusion in his head. He glanced back at the approaching figure.

And saw a glint of fiery hair beneath the cloak’s cowl.

For a tiny eternity, Draco forgot to worry and was furious instead. Why hadn’t she run? What in Merlin’s name did she think she was doing, throwing herself into the arms of the Death Eaters?

He jerked his attention away from her, to find the girl squinting at him. She had an odd smile. “Think I’ll turn, do you? Never thought you’d be one to resort to petty tricks. It’s so commonplace, it’s cute.”

She couldn’t turn around. She couldn’t. If she did, she would see Ginny, and then no power in the world would stop her from calling her compatriots. He forced himself to stare her in the eye, and all the while, Ginny crept closer.

But he couldn’t help the way his eyes flicked of their own accord. The Death Eater’s eyebrows rose. “You really expect me to fall for it, don’t you? I haven’t the patience for this, Malfoy. I _know_ what you have in your hand. I’m not a bloody fool!”

 _Don’t turn. For the sake of all of us, don’t turn around._ Draco lifted his chin hesitantly and tried to speak, his voice cracking with the strain. Ginny was yards away, moving as silently as moth’s wings. Now he could see what she carried: a solid, twisted tree branch as long as her arm and twice as thick. He fixed his eyes on the Death Eater, but could still see Ginny’s piercing blue in his mind.

“Why haven’t you called them, then?” he whispered. The girl’s face ruptured into a heave of triumph. 

“Forgive me for wanting to leave you with something of my own. But you’re absolutely right. It’s time they joined us. And then we can all look for your slag together.”

It was amazing she had not sensed the presence behind her. Ginny’s expression stiffened; she wheeled the branch over her shoulder with both hands and her lips parted to suck in a silent breath. Draco watched the tendons in Ginny’s wrists tighten. 

And then she swung.

The branch slammed into the back of the girl’s skull with a sickening crack. She dropped without a sound, splashing face first into the mud. Ginny’s shoulders heaved with every breath, her face contorted in belated surprise. She opened and closed her mouth silently, and Draco suddenly found himself again.

He bent and snatched the wand from the Death Eater’s limp fingers. Magic tingled up his arm. Ginny took a step toward him and stopped. She was trembling, water running in rivulets down her face.

Why had she—But there was no time for it. Draco grabbed his pack from the ground, yanking it over his shoulder. Blood was running into his eyes; he swiped it away, felt pain as he glanced over the cut at his temple. Looked for Ginny again and found her staring back, wide-eyed.

He couldn’t meet her gaze for long.

Draco crouched and slapped the Minis-port onto the flesh just at the felled woman’s nape. She vanished in a quiver of air. The voices in the woods were audible now, coming closer. The muted clap of Apparition echoed. The branch fell from Ginny’s grasp. Draco grabbed her hand, and they started to run.


	10. Circle

**originally posted 4/18/07**

 

Draco dashed rainwater and blood from his eyes. Ginny’s grip on his hand had become feverishly tight. He quickened his pace, pulling her forward through the trees, felt her fingers clench around his, and wondered briefly at the fact that he was still holding her hand. Days, even moments ago, this would have been intolerable. Now, her palm was a comfortable heat against his, containing more strength than he’d expected.

Strong enough to swing a branch over her head.

Why had she helped him? Draco pulled up short and she slid to a stop just behind. They both looked over their shoulders into the dim weave of trees. A watery trail of blood ran down Ginny’s forearm. She’d been cut, then. By the branch? He heard nothing but the incessant patter of rain on leaves. The presence of magic frayed at his nerves. Ginny turned darting eyes his way, and he noticed the shadows pocking her face. She felt it too. And yet she’d come back.

 _She disregarded your instructions,_ his mind attempted. But Draco couldn’t summon the anger. Only pungent relief. He pushed aside a low-hanging branch, wincing at the snapping as twigs broke and rained down onto the forest floor. He eased past, then held it out of the way for Ginny.

And now she was Ginny. Not Weasley. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.

Her other hand closed convulsively around his sleeve and Draco halted. He narrowed his eyes at her and she jerked her head behind them. Draco couldn’t see anything. He grabbed her arm and pulled again, but Ginny shook her head.

“Behind,” she hissed. Draco peered harder into the woods, but could see nothing. Hear nothing.

“We can’t stop,” he gritted back. “We have no idea where they are.”

The eruption of a voice to their left froze Draco in his tracks. Ginny bumped into him with a stifled gasp, and for a long moment, they just stood there clutching at each other. Listening to the footsteps drawing past. He felt her breathing quietly against his back, and knew with something akin to embarrassment that she could feel him too. He palmed through his robe pocket and fumbled out a second Minis-port.

The Death Eater’s voice faded, and Draco nearly let go of Ginny’s hand. There was no real reason to hold it any longer; she had demonstrated that she would follow swiftly, and without argument. And they might need both their hands. 

In the end, he did not let go.

Coming around a thicket, Draco nearly ran into another black-robed figure. Ginny jerked him back. By some miracle, the man was not facing them, did not turn around, and Draco managed to put several feet between them. But it was impossible to keep the silence: Ginny’s hiss of surprise when she hit a tree behind, the _chik_ of a stick breaking under Draco’s shoe, and the man whirled, wand flashing up. Draco lunged, slamming his elbow into the man’s throat. The Death Eater managed a mangled cry, and then the cool obsidian was between them and the man was gone.

Too late.

“Gods, they’re—” Ginny gasped out, and then clamped her mouth shut. Draco heard the shouts, too, the crackle of vegetation being shoved aside. He unconsciously reached for her again and she tugged him to the left. He couldn’t tell where the voices were coming from exactly, but anywhere would be better than here. If they were that close, they might have felt even the Minis-port. He broke into a run, pushing her ahead through a thick stand of trees, just as the foliage parted behind them. Not caring about the noise they now made.

He knew what would happen, should they be caught. What they would do to her—hell, what they would do to _him_. He had been there in his nightmares and it broke cold sweat across his flesh. Draco ran, and the mottled light rippled over Ginny’s cloak in front of him. The rain drenched dark swathes into her pack.

He could hear nothing over the thud of his heart, see nothing but the endless tree trunks. Ginny ran in front of him, her hood slipping off, red hair streaming behind her. His shoes slid and he righted himself. Pushed on. She looked back and caught his eye with a twisted expression. 

He had no idea where they were.

The flicker of magic teased around him. A tracking spell. The Death Eaters couldn’t see them then; if they could, there would be no end to the barrage of magic, no ducking the shrapnel from the trees. Ginny’s ragged breathing grated in his ears… or was it his own? Draco cut left, tugging on her flying cloak, and she wheeled in beside him. There was light ahead, a brightening in the gloom, almost like a tunnel. Draco broke into a flat run.

They cleared the trees in a wash of light. There was green before him, washed out by the rain, and a towering grey sky. It was pouring; there were no branches now to stop the onslaught. Draco’s legs kept moving on their own, rushing away from the forest. The whip of red hair edged his vision as Ginny cast a glance behind. Draco blinked, trying to gain his bearings.

Open field. Hills beyond.

Ginny tripped, stumbling to her knees in the grass and Draco spun, whipping out his wand. He squinted at the close line of trees and then wheeled again to find Ginny kneeling, clutching at her shin. She was looking at the small, rounded stone she’d fallen over. Her eyes darted away, circling the field. 

“Standing stones.” Her eyes widened as she took in the empty field, the short grass swept by the storm, the slopes ahead. “There’s nowhere to go!”

Draco stared at the stone. It was only a foot tall, flat and slender, ending in a rounded edge that curved toward the sky. “What did you say?”

Her eyes were full of despair. “There’s nowhere to—”

“Before that.”

Her face was barren. But Draco had already turned. Suddenly he could see more stones where his frenzy had blanked them out before. A foot tall, two feet. Three. They were spaced every ten feet or so, and they stretched away into the line of trees. Some of the stones near the forest were tall enough to shadow Draco if he stood upright. The deep green moss sweeping over their edges loosened something inside him. The familiar colour glowed in his mind.

He was reaching before he could think. Ginny watched as he knelt by the small stone. 

“We’ll stay here.”

“What?” Ginny shook her head. “Here? Right here?”

Draco held one hand over the stone and felt warmth seeping up into his palm. 

Ginny grabbed his shoulder. “We can’t stay here! We’re even less protected than we were in the forest.”

Draco shook his head. He laid his palms against the mossy stone and went light-headed at the power pulsing through him. “They’re standing stones. It’s a sacred place, centuries of earth magic. We’ll be safe from anyone wishing us harm.”

Ginny blinked at him through the rain. He felt for her hand and pulled her forward. “Touch the stone. Here.”

Ginny’s freckled hand joined his. The hue of the moss seemed to flower, impossibly vibrant. Their skin looked translucent next to the rich tone. Ginny pulled away with a hiss. 

“What in Merlin’s—”

Draco forced her hand onto the stone once more. “You have to be in contact with it! Don’t move.”

Ginny nodded shakily. She took two deep breaths, and then her gaze moved past him. She gave a sharp cry and lurched backward, clapping a hand over her mouth. Draco’s grip on her other wrist caught her, tumbling her onto her side in the grass. Draco whipped around and found himself a foot away from a Death Eater.

The wand in the Death Eater’s spindly fingers was aimed right at his face. Dark eyes gleamed from beneath the sodden hood, sweeping well over Draco’s head, back and forth. 

Back and forth.

Draco swallowed. He turned as slowly as possible and looked down at Ginny. She stared up at him, face whiter than snow. Her throat worked. As quickly as he dared, Draco snaked his arm around her shoulders and hauled her up against his chest. She clutched at his arm. He stared over the top of her head into the rain-lashed field. _“Don’t move.”_

He felt her give the slightest of nods. 

He could still see how wide her eyes had been. They would be fixed on the Death Eater, but Draco could no longer see him. He was facing the wrong way, and all he could see was the tossing grass. Rainwater dripped into his eyes.

Moments passed. Draco’s heart thrummed, beating down even the sound of the wind. He squeezed Ginny’s fingers, pressing both their hands to the stone. The green seemed to devour their flesh and the scent of sage teased Draco’s nostrils.

It seemed to last forever. His clothing clung to him in a chilly mass, but Ginny’s body was warm, her fingers five points of heat pressing into his arm. He didn’t remember breathing, or thinking. Just staring out, watching the landscape fog over and refocus. As though he were seeing some dream world.

At last, he became aware of Ginny’s breathing. It had changed from desperate hitches to a slow, shuddery heave. Draco felt her hand twitch under his own. She squeezed his arm.

“Th—” She inhaled. “They’re gone.”

Draco pulled back, and her heat peeled away from him. Water slid down her face, over her lips and chin. She blinked several times and pulled back further. Draco turned around and found the space where the Death Eater had stood empty. There was the plain imprint of boots on the flattened grass. Dark figures hurried along the forest’s edge, but they were moving away, too far to see clearly; the rain was too thick. Voices came to his ears, broken like echoes. He exhaled, and only then did Ginny’s hand drop from his arm.

Draco released her more quickly than he’d intended and sat back on his heels.

She wasn’t looking at him. Wasn’t looking at the Death Eaters either. She was staring at the ground, her eyes unfocussed. He opened his mouth, but there was nothing waiting there. So he stared after their departing pursuers instead. He squeezed her fingers against the stone.

“Keep—keep your hand on it. Until they’ve gone.”

She nodded. For a long moment, Draco couldn’t move. Then he shifted his hand off of hers, gripping the edge of the stone. The moss cushioned his fingers and tendrils of magic crept up his arm. Draco shivered and watched the rain sheeting down around them. 

* * *

Wind rushed across the grass, cleaving furrows and whipping water away. The torrent had slowed to a gentle drip and the clouds were rolling by overhead with astonishing speed, patching the earth with shadows. Ginny lay curled in her cloak, one arm looped around the base of the stone. Her face was hidden in the folds of her hood. Draco stood several meters away, a hand poised against a larger stone.

She’d been asleep for hours. It wasn’t the comforting sleep of safety; it was the tumble into exhaustion. She clutched the stone even in her dreams, fingers bare and white against the base. Limp strands of hair pooled on the grass at the edge of her hood.

Draco took an unsteady step forward and lifted his hand from the stone. It wouldn’t matter now, he was certain. Whether he touched the stones or not, the magic was there like a quilt folded round him. It was nothing like the everyday magic he used; it was almost a second heartbeat, curious and present, at times unbalancing, but always there to redress the discrepancy again. Earthen, old. This magic didn’t know him as human; it knew him as an extension of itself.

Draco walked along the line to the next stone, putting distance between himself and his huddled companion. His cheeks were cold, ice under the skin, and his clothing was a sodden sack over his limbs. He had no idea why he wasn’t freezing to death. Maybe it was this circle, this leyline. 

Maybe he was just in shock.

The next stone reached nearly to his waist. They were some distance from where he’d planned to come out of the forest. The ridge was just visible to the north. Draco rubbed his fingers over the thick layer of moss covering the stone. He’d never heard of a stone circle out here. Avebury, yes, but that was miles away, closer to the remnants of Salisbury. They hadn’t gone near it; it was too close to a rendezvous point for Granger and Abbott. Unless Avebury was a hell of a lot bigger than anyone had ever thought, then there might be hundreds of unknown stone circles, only rising into human awareness now, at the touch of magical catastrophe.

Many old spells had been dug up from under the earth: centuries old, millennia. Lovegood’s ward was one of hundreds: defensive shields, rapacious and destructive offensive spells… The fragile wards still guarding either side from the other. Perhaps the earth had finally sensed what was being demanded of it and was waking itself from a deep slumber.

What else might be cropping up in other parts of the world? In America, Africa, the Middle East? Monoliths in Egypt, talismans in Norway. Ancient magic he couldn’t begin to contemplate. He wasn’t sure if humans should anyway.

He moved on to the next stone. Taller still; it could shield him from the drizzle if he hunched low enough. Again, the steady pulse rolled through him. The sage was stronger, the moss bright against dull grey. He shook himself. Looked back at Ginny’s curled form in the grass.

He hadn’t given himself the time while they were running, but now the fear would not be driven away. The girl, the Death Eater… Had Ginny been a lucky guess on her part? Or had she known beyond a doubt that he was guiding Ginny Weasley and not one of the others? A spy in their ranks was unlikely. There just weren’t enough people who knew, and the ones who did were out of reach or beyond a shadow of a doubt. And Draco was not going to start second-guessing the only people he had left, not until there was something more concrete to go on than a lucky guess by a child Death Eater.

There were other ways for her to know, and all of them were bad.

If Blaise had been caught, they might have found out who Draco had led off into the night. Or if Finnigan had fallen into their clutches. The people in the castle were inaccessible, thanks to Lovegood’s spell. Draco knew enough about the Siren’s Ward not to doubt its power. But that only left one other option.

Had they found Granger and Abbott? Draco frowned at the stone beneath his hand. It was… likely. They’d been sent specifically to draw the Death Eaters away. What if they had drawn them too close and succumbed to their own snare? How long ago? Perhaps Ginny had been the last option for days, even weeks. His charge could have become the most sought-after of the four overnight without him knowing.

What if he, Draco Malfoy, truly held the only key to this war in his hands?

His chest began to seize. Draco stumbled over the grass to the next stone… and the next one. Taller and taller. Unsure of where he was going, only needing to move. The circle locked him into its embrace, and yet it couldn’t drown out the strange whine in his ears.

 _And you made it so,_ his mind hissed. _You made it all possible._

He tripped and fell against a looming monolith just inside the forest. The tree trunks cross-hatched shadows over the surface and the moss glowed in the odd light. He dragged his fingers over it and felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside.

He gravitated toward the colour green. First in the razor edge and sibilant silence of a horrific spell, and then in the colour of a person’s—

It all rolled over him at once. He fell to his knees, his throat a knot of heat. Draco pressed his hands over his face and tried one last time to will it away before it finally shook itself free.

“Well, Theodore,” he forced out between gasps. The moss beckoned, warm and icy at the same time, light and dark and full and translucent. Eyes of two hues. “Theodore… at least…. At least in a pinch…” He laughed, a helpless burst. “We know I will rise to the occasion and do the good, the _right,_ thing.”

Oh gods, what had he done? He could have just let her go, there in the forest. Left her to them. Watched as they dragged her away from the task she’d been set to do, forever. He could have… he could have let her die and been done with it. But he hadn’t. He’d thrown himself to the wolves instead, but he hadn’t died, as he’d expected—hoped? He’d come through it, thanks to the very person he’d sacrificed himself for. He’d gotten them both to the safety of ancient magic, and now, now he was going to get her the rest of the way, to the castle, to—

To Harry.

The edge rushed forward and fell out from under him. He slumped against the stone, trying desperately to keep quiet, riding the wracking of his body into twitches and heaves. He saw nothing but blinding green. The sacrifice had been easy when he’d known he wouldn’t live to see what it wrought. But he had survived. And then he had looked his last chance to get what he most desired in the face, and thrown it away.

“Oh, gods—” He gave up trying to stop it and just let it smother him, tears dripping down his face, barely able to breathe through the pain. The mossy eyes blinked at him, the magic curled, and Draco let himself cry for something—someone—he would now never have.


	11. In the Dark

**originally posted 4/30/07**

Ginny woke groggily, swimming up from a void too deep for dreams. She was freezing. The ground beneath her was cushy and wet, and her arm stiff from the angle she found it in. She blinked and came face to face with an unforgiving plane inches from her nose. A rock… stone. With moss. She raised her head and found the world dark and empty and cold.

Her brain caught up with her at last and Ginny pushed up with a gasp, clinging to the stone in front of her. Her mind whirled and she turned her head back and forth, trying to see her surroundings.

Tired words came from the darkness to her left. “It’s alright, Weasley. Relax.”

She recognised Draco’s voice and sucked back the whimper that had been threatening. She swallowed. Gripped the small stone and pulled herself into a sitting position.

The clouds had broken overhead to allow the shine of stars. The moon was a burgeoning disc, casting white light across fields that glittered. Ginny wiped at her face with her sleeve and looked around. The forest was a shadow beyond the stone, but she could pick out individual trunks in the moonlight. Or… Ginny squinted. It wasn’t the moon. She lifted her hand before her eyes and saw her palm clearly in a faint golden glow.

“It’s the circle,” Draco said. Ginny saw him at last, sitting a few yards away with his back against a larger stone. Indeed, the stone was giving off a glow that beamed out around the edges of Draco’s cloak and hair. Ginny ran her fingers over her own stone. The surface was warm.

“How…?” She fell silent. She heard the rustle of Draco’s cloak.

“Fuck if I know.”

He was the picture of calm, legs crossed in front of him, knapsack leaning against his side. She squinted. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A few hours.” Draco snorted softly. “You can let go of the stone. The magic reaches further than that.”

Ginny realised she was gripping the stone very tightly. Rather painfully, actually. With a feeling of misgiving, she relaxed her fingers, ready to grab hold again in an instant. The flickering through her body—a constant she had not noticed at first—did not change. It rolled around her in sleepy waves. Still, she placed her hand back on the stone’s surface. 

“Are they…”

Draco exhaled. “Gone. For hours.”

He sounded funny. Ginny pushed clinging hair from her cheeks. For all Draco’s tranquility, he didn’t sound like—His voice was rough. As though he’d been yelling. Draco caught her looking and dropped his gaze to his knees. The odd light coming from the stones highlighted the fine angles of his face.

“Do you think they can see this?” she asked, looking at the monoliths marching off into the darkness.

Draco stirred. “I don’t think _we_ could see this if we weren’t…” He gestured. Ginny nodded. Their eyes met and Ginny noticed a strange puffiness under Draco’s. 

He… crying? She blinked, and he’d looked away again. Injury, maybe. Or sleeplessness. Surely she’d have heard him. Wouldn’t she have?

With a start, Ginny remembered. “How’s your head?”

“I’ll live,” was all he said.

He’d been crying; it was in his voice. Stress, then. She could hardly blame him. She felt numb throughout, and knew it was only a matter of time before the events of the day caught up and tried to drown her. 

“Are we lost?”

“No.” This time there was an edge to the word, and Ginny blinked. Wondered if he would offer anything else. But Draco only wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself.

He could have run. On his own, leaving the forest and drawing them away, or just escaping. He could have gone while she slept. Ginny studied the stone under her hand in search of an answer. Bloody hell, she didn’t even know the question she meant to ask. Running was what she’d expected him to do; she’d even tried to twist his sacrifice in the forest into selfishness on his part, even though it led to death in any case. She had never expected that Draco Malfoy would catch up her hand and pull her along, block her with his own body when a Death Eater’s wand rose before them, drag her to a halt and silence her panic with an embrace. An embrace. Gods. 

She’d never expected he would go to his own death rather than let them catch her.

 _Maybe he was going to report to them._ But even that thought was repugnant now. The suspicion made her feel unclean. Ashamed. She’d seen real fear in his eyes; it had driven extra force into her swing, sparking hotly through her and leading her to slam a branch into the head of another person. For all she knew, she’d killed the girl. For Malfoy.

And she wasn’t sorry. She couldn’t be. He’d obviously seen the bigger picture and dropped behind so that it could take shape. But he’d also saved her life, and then he’d done it again, when it would have been easier to leave her to her fate. He’d grabbed her hand, and she’d squeezed back.

“Thank you for not leaving me.”

Draco made a sharp sound. “Couldn’t very well do that, could I?” he muttered, a strange lilt to the words. If it had been any other situation, she would have sworn it was amusement. But bitter-tasting.

Was he angry at her? She had not done as he’d said, it was true. She’d probably put them all in danger with her stunt, everyone who was relying on her safe arrival. She wasn’t sure what had made her turn back in the forest. The weight on her heart, perhaps, surprising, but very, very real. He had a right to be mad, even if she knew she couldn’t have done any differently. 

But he’d said nothing about her disregard for his orders. Ginny fidgeted. Was he grateful? He’d been relieved at the time; there was no other name for it. But given the opportunity to think about it, to remember…

“You should sleep,” she whispered. Draco dragged his gaze up to meet hers. For a moment they just stared at each other. Then his shoulders sagged. 

“I would,” he answered. “If I thought I could.”

“Maybe we should go. Then.”

It was with a thorough sense of relief that she greeted the shaking of his head; she didn’t want to move just yet, didn’t want to step away from the circle into a night full of shadows. Her fear tapped on her nerves like little fingers. She didn’t quite believe that they were alone yet. 

Draco sighed. “We have time. Give it a few more hours.”

Ginny nodded wordlessly, unsure how to address him anymore. What were they now, friends? She certainly didn’t hate him and was certain he didn’t hate her. Companions, then. And not just in name. She’d found reason enough to save his life, he had returned the favor, and now she found herself in an unfamiliar landscape, wondering exactly what they meant to each other.

Maybe those particular thoughts were the source of his discomfort as well.

Harry had not chosen unwisely then. Ginny grimaced into the night. She’d been on such a tenuous edge of trust with Harry for so long, riding only the belief that he would never endanger her, only to have it proved to her in the clearest terms. Harry thought highly enough of Draco to not only trust him with someone’s life, but to trust him with _her_ life, with the life of a person Draco disliked terribly. Or had once. For so long, she’d not understood why Harry had ever let Draco Malfoy beyond Grimmauld’s wards, or into Hogwarts, into the planning and dealing and… warring. She had never questioned Draco’s ability to betray them, to hate them all so much that he would grind Harry’s absurd trust into the dirt and fling them all into Voldemort’s clutches.

But Harry’s trust had not been absurd after all. Now she understood the fervor behind his eyes as he defended Draco from the lashings of the others. Didn’t feel it herself, but understood it. She’d rarely seen Harry fight so hard as he did in the months after Draco arrived at Grimmauld, until it became second nature for all of them to grumble disagreement but ultimately let it go.

Had Harry and Draco become friends when she wasn’t looking? Before the war, she would have laughed aloud at such an idea.

“Draco,” she started. His head lifted sharply, expression smoothed with surprise. Ginny licked her lips, his first name tasting foreign on her tongue. “Why did Harry pick you to do this?”

He was so good at these masks, to the point that she had ceased to imagine a real person beneath them. But there must be, for Harry to trust him.

“I’m sure I have no idea,” he said shortly.

Ginny pressed her lips together. Looked at her hands. “Well, I don’t think he was wrong.”

Some truce. She should have found a better way to get her thoughts across. She tried to rectify her statement, but Draco cut her off.

“Well. I feel so much better now that I know that.”

Ginny frowned at him. Was he _trying_ to rile her? Whatever for? They were not bosom buddies, certainly, but she’d said nothing that warranted such cutting retorts. “I’m not trying to argue with you,” she responded tensely.

Draco shut his eyes. Ignored her. Ginny fought the instinctive build of anger in her chest. He was tired, they both were. They’d nearly been killed. And fuck it all, she was way past caring about the squabbles she had so recently liked to engage in with him. But she wasn’t going to talk to him if he was going to dismiss everything that had happened. “Fine. I’ll just thank Harry then, when we get there.”

In the stones’ glow, Draco’s eyes sparked oddly. “I’m sure you will.”

Ginny glared at him. “Yes. I will. I have no problem admitting I was wrong. But I haven’t always been wrong, Malfoy.”

“That’s so big of you.”

He was definitely trying to rile her. Despite the frustration, Ginny’s curiosity was piqued. She let the silence suck some of the tension away, choosing her next words to avoid another confrontation.

“Maybe you’ll let Harry thank you in my stead.” 

If the light had been brighter… She would have sworn Draco paled. But it was impossible to tell and he was already looking away. 

“I have no desire to see Potter.”

“Well, he might want to see you. Obviously he thinks highly of you.”

Draco let out what sounded suspiciously like a hiss. His body contracted in on itself. “I could care less what Harry thinks of me.”

Ginny did not miss the choice of first name. A lie, anyway. Straightforward, and uncaring of whether she missed it or not. She wished she could read his expression, but he was looking down at his hands where they rested in his lap.

“Still.” She worried her lip, uncertain. “He’s going to want to thank you.”

“I’m certain he will, Weasley, just before getting on with the more important matters at hand.”

Ginny drew herself up, stung by the sarcasm. “He’s not like that. And you know it as well as I do.”

Draco was silent, but it was too late; her bristles were out. Not because he was being a prick but because she was right. Why in Godric’s name was he being so difficult about this? Her old penchant for competition fluttered to life. “You do know it. He trusts you for some weird reason, after all.”

“Yeah, well, maybe Harry trusts too easily,” Draco spat.

The second time he’d used Harry’s first name. Ginny straightened in surprise. No, it wasn’t the second time, but she’d dismissed it so quickly before, certain that he was being his usual snide self. Passed right by it several days ago. 

She’d even called him on it. _Since when is he Harry to you?_

An odd familiarity stirred in her gut. Ginny leaned against the stone to ground herself. But the feeling wouldn’t settle; it wound up through her until it spiked into annoyance. She jerked forward. “You know, you don’t have to be an arse all the time, Malfoy! Sometimes talking is just fine.”

He snorted. “You have never wanted to talk to me. Why bother now?”

He was sneering. She couldn’t see it very well, but she could hear it. All of her carefully plotted patience vanished in a trice and old anger rose again to the surface. She coupled it with that nagging twinge, the strangeness of his words, his snipe tongue, found the dislike she had been lacking all over again, and she lashed out in its wake. “Maybe I thought we had something in common, but I guess I was fucking wrong.”

When his head came up, there was no sneer there. There was _nothing_ she recognised there. His skin was ashen even in the gold light and he looked at her miserably. Ginny’s mouth dropped open. There had never been a time, even in the extremes of his anger, that she had seen his walls stripped away. He probably wasn’t even aware it had happened. Now there was just a man in front of her, torn by something monumental and trying desperately to keep it locked away. Draco Malfoy… was in pain. Helplessly so.

“Are you alright?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

Draco’s face contorted, mask after mask slamming down until there was nothing but a twisted aspect of the person she had just seen. “Why the fuck do you care?”

Ginny flinched. It wasn’t him. She’d seen the real him for an instant and then he’d _smothered_ himself. Even more horrifying was the thought that maybe he’d always done that. For years and years, and she had just consigned him to hatred, as he’d consigned her. But it wasn’t holding any longer. His edges were fraying right before her eyes and she had the frightening feeling that something colossal was going to come pouring through the rips and tears, large and dark and painful, something she had no business knowing.

“Why don’t _you_ care?” she asked in a shrill voice. 

“There’s nothing to care about! It’s a damn war, not a storybook. It has to be done and there’s nothing to care about. Not about me, and certainly not about you!”

“Why the hell did you save me if you don’t care about anything?” Tears pricked at her eyelids. “Why are you even doing this? Do you think you owe him something? Because Harry asked you to and you—”

Draco’s face collapsed and rebuilt itself in the same instant. His knuckles whitened around handfuls of his cloak. “I don’t give a fuck about any of it, Weasley!” he rasped. “Not you, not—him. If he wants to bind himself to you, then let him. It’ll save my fucking life, now won’t it?”

The stillness swarmed in, blanketing them both, and in that insignificant pin-drop space, the feeling twisting in her gut took shape. She gaped at him, unable to stop, the thought coalescing with the speed of lightning.

Oh, _no._ No. Not possible.

But the more it turned inside her, the more probable it became. She’d seen it all over him, but hadn’t known what to look for until now. The reason Draco was there at all. The reason her foolish, _foolish_ entreaties about Nott had gone over so badly. The reason that Harry held so much sway over him, that Harry—

She began to tremble. She wanted it gone from her head, but it festered like some great sore. Her stomach ached and for a moment, she thought she might be sick. It couldn’t be. Things did not work out this way. They did not complicate themselves so _utterly._ They did not just steal from her like this, turn everything on its head, and she had to know, had to see it rejected in his eyes. Words formed on their own.

“Why are you really in this war?” she whispered.

Draco stood up. His face was a cold mask, but there were frail fissures around the edges. “Shut up, Weasley. You don’t know a thing about me.”

But Ginny was scared that she _did_ know at least one thing. And she thought it had been far, far better when she hadn’t known anything about Draco Malfoy.

* * *

Hermione’s foot twisted under her as she hit the ground. She shoved a hand out, catching herself against spongy earth, and rolled. Her wand nearly shot out of her hand and for an endless instant, she grappled. Her fingers closed around smooth wood once more and she pushed herself dizzily to her feet. Darkness swam like black soup. One hand waving out in front of her, Hermione forced her legs into a run.

Her vision returned first in sparks, and then random shimmers. She could hear emptiness, the hollow sound of open land, but she had no idea where she was. In a few seconds she would see it. Hopefully she would be alone.

At least her pursuer had been forced to Apparate as many times as she; his eyes would be playing tricks on him as well, and perhaps, gods, perhaps he hadn’t been able to catch the tail end of her magic this time.

She’d managed to skirt the others over the past two days. But this one… this one was persistent.

At last, Hermione picked out the slope of hills against the dark sky and the glimmer of stars. The world in front of her was still a vague, clouded mass. She rubbed at her temples as she ran, but her vision did not clear. It took her a moment to realise it had nothing to do with her eyes at all. 

Fog. Lots of it. Hermione halted despite her instincts and took in her surroundings properly. Hills to her left; a deep valley to her right. Up on the highest mount, above twisting trees and switchback Muggle roads, a stocky castle reached heavenward. One tower was intact; its sisters rose jagged into the stars.

The Dales. She’d made it to the Dales after all, and that… that was Bolton Castle. Wasn’t it? Hermione squinted. The silhouette was unmistakable. Whatever windows might have beamed light were dark and abandoned. Perhaps boarded up. Bolton held magical signature, but it was unrefined, and there might not be anyone left in these valleys to seek sanctuary within its walls anyway.

Hermione tripped on a jutting root and went sprawling again. She stumbled the remaining few yards to a dense clump of bushes just beneath an oak. Once there, she collapsed and caught her breath. Finally the last of the cobwebs receded from her eyes. But she shut them, glad of the encompassing darkness. 

He hadn’t followed her. Yes, and maybe the world had stopped spinning around the sun, too. Hermione had stopped indulging such a fantasy. One day ago, to be exact. This Death Eater was too good. He’d abandoned the rest of his colleagues in order to keep up with her Apparition, and even the constant switching between her wand and Ginny’s had not derailed him. Hermione dug into her pack and pulled out Ginny’s wand anyway, shoving her own into its place. If nothing else, she could continue to convince him that there were two of them instead of just her, alone in the shrouded hills.

They knew about her, at least. Two days of hiding was a long time to think about what had happened.

Hannah’s death still felt unreal, too raw. Perhaps Hermione had come upon her too suddenly and had not had the necessary moment afterward in which to commit fact to feature. Hannah’s glassy eyes were burned into her brain, but the inevitable, ominous thud of finality had not followed; in Hermione’s mind, Hannah was only staring upward, unable to close her eyes against the rain. Waiting for something.

“Face facts,” she hissed. It wasn’t the first time she’d given herself such an order. Hannah was dead, and now their group of bonding candidates was down to three. Three left for Voldemort and his lackeys to mill over, to spin counter-spells for in preparation. Why couldn’t she engrave it into her brain? It just wasn’t coming, no matter how many practical statements she made to herself, no matter the fact that her _body_ had known and had taken her away from the corpse of her friend. Hannah was beyond help; Hermione knew that. She would never have left her otherwise. But for some reason, the end of that thought process was not coming.

There were other things to think about. 

She didn’t know what Hannah had told them. But it had been a trap. A Dark Mark woven into Hannah’s very flesh, set to erupt at the slightest touch. Perhaps rigged for Hermione’s specific touch. She pressed her hands over her face. They couldn’t have set it for her, could they? Did they know her that well?

How long had Hannah been alive while Hermione snuck around in the dark and the rain? Had she answered their questions? How much had she been able to divert, to keep silent? How many lies had she convinced them of? 

Had they used Veritaserum?

She had to assume they knew everything: About Luna, about herself. About Harry and the castle, and Ginny’s imminent arrival. About Draco Malfoy. It was a damn good thing neither she nor Hannah had been privy to which route Ginny and Malfoy would take.

Hermione crawled on hands and knees until she could see through the gaps in the bushes. The hills beyond were quiet save for the wind, and the fog rolled lazily. The only thing to do was lose her tail and make for the castle. Warn Harry. But she had no way of knowing if she was really alone. It had happened before: an Apparition into Dublin’s crumbled streets, no sound of pursuit, and the instant she had begun the next jump, there was a deafening crack and a Stunning spell zinging past her, missing by centimeters. He’d been only streets away. She had to be absolutely certain she was alone before she made for the castle, or no amount of grief would make up for the damage she would cause.

The Death Eater’s face was old and craggy with scars, but Hermione had recognised him. It was Macnair, all the worse for the seven years since she’d last seen him. It was incredibly disturbing to think—actually _think_ —about him knowing her. Details of her life. The unique aura of her magic. She felt as if his hands had been all over her body, through her possessions, in her memories. He knew who she was. Even more terrifying, he obviously understood her. He wouldn’t give up unless she forced the issue, and she didn’t know if she was good enough to beat him in a duel. But that would only draw the others, faster than she could blink. Running, Apparating, were her only options.

But the idea of going blind again was too much. It would take at least four more Apparitions in a row, with no sign of pursuit, until she felt completely safe. Who knew what state her eyes and ears would be in then? She’d never had to Apparate this much before.

She’d never been chased within an inch of her life before. She’d never had so much depending upon her escape.

Hermione swallowed against the burning in the back of her throat and searched the fog for tell-tale movement. There were a lot of things she had never done before that she had now done. Some she had done out of necessity, without thinking, but time didn’t allow her that luxury for long, and now she crouched in the dark, running over the consequences of actions taken in haste. Not searching for Luna’s wand, or Hannah’s, there in the streets of Salisbury. Not choosing areas further from the castle when she jumped, but she couldn’t bring herself to put too much distance between herself and the promise of safety.

That old church two days past, now lying in ruins. Gods, what if someone had been in there? Muggles, or… or wizards, whoever was left, hiding from the weight of the war? She’d blasted it to smithereens to cover her escape. If someone had been hiding inside, he or she—or they—had been killed. _She_ had killed them.

Or maybe the church had been empty. The point was, now she would never know.

Like a brush of breeze, she felt it: the searching tingle of a seeking spell over her arms. Hermione squeezed Ginny’s wand and stared into the darkness. The spell roved over her shoulders and up into her hair. Hermione grimaced, fighting the urge to cry. She’d not lost him. He was near… but not near enough, unless she used the wand. The spell sang enticingly over her flesh and then pulled back. Disappeared. 

A few seconds later, it returned. He was moving.

Hermione sat back to wait. She had time, and darkness enough to hide. She would find a pattern to his movements and utilise it to make her escape.


	12. Inner Scream

**originally posted 5/12/07**

 

It was waking to find the world full of new colours. The grass was still green, the sky patchy and blue, but it was a different green, an unfamiliar shade of blue. Ginny could make little sense of it; even the air seemed to bite, full of impossibility and sheer, ridiculous circumstance.

In the indigo dawn, rolling from sleep as suddenly and blankly as she had rolled into it, Ginny had discovered she was now voiceless. But not wordless. Oh, no, the words dug and scraped away inside her head, but there was no outlet. Her voice was a tremble of wasted breath, and after an hour, Ginny gave up and succumbed to the inner monologue.

If she could only make sense of it herself first... perhaps the rest would venture forth. But she had no idea what form it would take. Couldn’t decide between bursting anger and wretched disbelief.

Now sunlight crept into the sky, and Ginny sat in the shadow of the ridge and glared hard at the soil beneath her shoes. Her fingers were numb around the bag of granola; she hadn’t opened it. Food was trivial in the face of this new... Well. She hadn’t even decided what to name it.

If she could have believed Draco capable of such a—Ginny’s chin jerked and she forced herself to be still. Incongruous. Dra— _Malfoy_ didn’t even know the meaning of such an emotion. It was impossible to imagine this circumstance in anything but her wildest dreams, and she would not allow her stresses and fears to catalyse it into reality. She knew Draco Malfoy. 

But her eyes told her a different story. All the colours had warped, as though she were peeking through a tinted veil, but she knew what she’d seen. It had been burned there like a twisted tattoo. If it had been anything less...

Draco Malfoy, in love with Harry Potter? Yearning after him as if he had any right to do it.

Ginny sniffed and then glanced at her guide. But he was looking dully across the fields. Her old schoolmate’s face had worn the same mask since she’d woken. Perhaps he would have noticed her discomfort, had he not been so deep in the dregs of his mind.

Why was he so broken? Why now, why not when he’d first come to fetch her from Seamus and Blaise? She was looking at a different person, so changed was he. No less careful, but less of everything else.

More than once, Ginny caught herself wishing for him to be the way he had been, and then grew angry every time.

Harry... Harry was not Malfoy’s. She clenched her fingers tightly into her cloak. Damn it all, Harry cared for her, not him. Had never cared for him. She was the one fated to be with Harry, by Harry’s own words. But these thoughts were an old path: she’d walked down it over and over again, and what followed was just as well-trodden as what had come before.

She was only the other half of a spell. Perhaps that’s all she was—No, no, the spell was not just some spontaneous bond. It required sacrifices no one could be prepared to make without, pieces of the body and mind that were irreplaceable. It was ancient and permanent, and there was just no way Harry would ever choose a person he didn’t love and cherish and wish to share his very soul with. For that was what would happen; their souls would tangle together, weaving like a tapestry, and she would _be_ him for the rest of her life. It was a frightening prospect. She would know him better than she knew herself, taste him and hear him and dwell within him. And she loved him. She would do anything for him, and he knew that, damn it, knew it and returned the feeling tenfold. He was for her; he was not for Draco Malfoy.

 _Just what have you done to gain that sort of love?_ she thought bitterly, watching Draco’s profile from the corner of her eye. He’d done nothing. Ginny had known Harry since she was a child, had loved him for years. She’d been sister, friend, and yes, lover. She’d earned his respect and adoration, and Draco Malfoy had done nothing but tear Harry’s feelings to pieces for as long as Ginny had been nursing her feelings for Harry. Draco Malfoy only knew how to hurt Harry, to slash and beat and injure. Where Ginny nurtured, Draco cut. He’d never known Harry, never understood him as she had. He had never held Harry in his arms and shushed away the trials of growing up.

It was at the height of this thought that it came to her: There was no way Draco’s emotions were enough to tip the scales.

 _You can’t possibly be in love with him. Want him with every fiber of your being, every breath._ It was ludicrous. The proof stared her right in the face. Ginny yanked the hood of her cloak over her head. If she were Draco... oh, no, it was much too obvious: She would never, ever be able to guide someone else into the arms of someone she was so desperately in love with. To walk by that person’s side day after day, knowing that the instant she succeeded in her task, the other half of her soul would be ripped away forever. 

No, Draco was not in love with Harry. He would never give Harry up to her if he really felt that way. He would not have led her through the forest, or shared his water, or saved her life. He couldn’t, knowing that to do so would be to rob himself of the person he wanted most. 

Ginny sat back, mollified, and traced her memory for that strange wound in Draco’s eyes, the one that had first opened the door for her. She tried to find the falsity in it, the lapse of commitment that corroborated her conclusion.

It wasn’t there.

 _Well, why the fuck are you doing this, then?_ She longed to shout the question, demand an answer. Surely it was for his own ends, some desire to be accepted at last, or to be detached from the name of his family. Maybe—and she might just give him this—maybe he truly had become Harry’s friend and was just doing as Harry asked, only to confuse it with something else along the way.

Harry had asked him specifically, after all.

Draco’s expression flashed upon her inner eye again like a badly timed signal. Harry had asked him to guide her all the way to the castle so that they could end this war. Her mind tried to turn away from the uncharacteristic altruism, but...

It had always been Draco. Ginny hadn’t understood it at all when Seamus told her of Harry’s choice. Draco Malfoy hated her; why would he ever agree to be her protector? And he had protected her, she was way past denying that. Had he done it for her? Or... or because Harry had...

 _It’s a fucking job. He’s doing it to get on Harry’s good side._ But why would he need to? That went down tangled avenues she wanted to avoid. So then, he was only doing what Harry wanted. For the good of the cause.

Or for the good of Harry.

Her stomach churned. She fought the urge to leap up and pace. Draco had shown no disdain for his task, only pain, deep-seated and—and long-present. It was not new, what she’d seen in his eyes, in his entire body. It was something he’d dealt with. Something he knew, but not something he could dismiss and accept. 

Harry had asked. He was doing what Harry wanted.

And what Harry wanted most… was to save them all. Ginny’s breath stopped in her lungs. 

Perhaps Draco Malfoy didn’t love Harry Potter enough to refuse to guide Ginny. Perhaps Draco Malfoy loved Harry enough to set them both aside. To know that there was a bigger picture, thousands of suffering people who couldn’t be ignored. Because loving Harry Potter meant letting him love others more than he loved you. 

Because it was what Harry would have wanted most, in the end.

Her palms were bleeding. Ginny stared at the four arced cuts from her fingernails. Draco got heavily to his feet.

“Come on,” he muttered. Ginny heard the new listlessness in his words. “Only another few hours.”

Ginny lurched up from the rock, barely subduing the scowl that threatened, and yanked her pack over her shoulder. Draco had stilled. She could feel him watching her. But she couldn’t look back. She was afraid of what she might see.

 _Let him be the martyr, then,_ she thought as they skirted along the ridge. She certainly wasn’t going to be one. Who gave a flying fuck if Malfoy wanted to sacrifice his happiness for Harry Potter? It was only one half of the equation anyway, and there was no way to know what Harry’s feelings on the matter were. Martyrs had cast themselves over the proverbial cliff for less; a one-sided love affair was hardly new to the cause. 

Ginny sighed, the guilt of her disdainful thoughts finally having its way. When had she become so vindictive? She eyed Draco’s back, several paces in front. He’d saved her life and all she could do was get mad at feelings that she—

Fuck. That she had experienced herself. So Draco loved Harry Potter. So did she. There was no shame in it; she could hardly berate Draco for falling for so worthy a person. Was such a commonality so difficult to accept? Ginny chewed her lip. Draco’s hypothetical sacrifice was going to ensure that there would be an end to this war; it was a glimpse at a pain Ginny wasn’t sure she could bear herself. And he hadn’t said a word.

She’d asked him why he was in this war. Whatever else might be driving them, it was clear that they were both in it for one of the same reasons.

Common ground with Draco Malfoy. Ginny found the concept shocking. To at last see proof of a goal they both shared for the same reasons, regardless of whom they had been born to and how much they’d loathed one another for being different. He was more like her than she’d known, and that was so… strangely… comforting?

Yet when they finally reached their destination, only one of them would see that goal realised. Suddenly reality was too real, too unforgiving. It didn’t matter how much they had in common; nature wasn’t that kind. There was, after all, only one Harry. And even if Harry could—possibly?—love both of them, he would only bond with one.

_Which?_

Ginny scowled, angry all over again. The world had changed, hardened. There was no room for sympathy for Draco Malfoy, and even if she wanted there to be, logic overwhelmed everything. So what if she had loved Harry for years, seen him return her affections eagerly, and gotten to know him better than Malfoy? It all paled in the face of physicality: she, Ginny Weasley, was a girl, and Malfoy was a boy.

Ginny wasn’t a fool. In all her dating during school, her distancing from Harry and exploration of her attractions to others, she’d never lost sight of Harry’s preference. She’d watched the successes and failures of his relationship with Cho Chang, the thrall Fleur and her Beauxbatons friends held over him, and she’d known that they were the reason she still managed to hope. Whatever else Harry might be, Ginny had seen no evidence that he was interested in the same sex.

But that had been years ago. She’d been the first to see how the war affected Harry’s outlook on relationships. She’d damn well lost him to it, hadn’t she? Nobility, concern for her well-being—it couldn’t cover up the fact that the war had made his feelings for her secondary. And then they’d all changed so drastically, and could she really say after three years of hardly being around him that she had any idea what he was feeling now?

What if… Ginny stumbled slightly. What if she was wrong in thinking that those three years had been the same blank slate for Harry as they’d been for her? The war had swung up and grabbed hold too tightly for Ginny to even consider another emotional entanglement. But there had been opportunities, that she could not deny. Only the thought that Harry might be waiting for her had kept her out of Dean’s bed a year ago, and she’d heard through the walls and tent canvas the trysts that would never be repeated, but were necessary for comfort’s sake. People came together, people split apart again. The relief of stress was so very important to avoid insanity. She’d simply found other ways to go about it.

But Harry, the saviour of them all, leader first by accident and then by horrible, enduring trial… His pressure was greatest. And choosiness was not often an option. Might there not have been nights when the person who found a way into Harry’s bed was not a woman, but a man?

Ginny hated the idea. Not because it was repugnant, but because it was possible. Gender rarely made a difference in the heat of the moment, not during a war. And she, so absorbed in her own loss and yearning, had not thought to look for it.

“Fuck it all, _no.”_ No. It didn’t matter who Harry might have taken to his bed. This was still Draco Malfoy, and she was a long way from believing that six years of rivalry had succumbed to two years of desperation. It did not work like that. Harry had standards and Draco would have to have done something drastic to meet them. Coming over to the Order’s side wouldn’t have been enough and that wasn’t just her hope talking. She still understood Harry Potter, in all the important ways.

But somehow, Draco had managed to gain Harry’s trust. Hermione had expressed concern two years ago, though Ginny didn’t know if she’d said anything to Harry himself. But eventually even Hermione let it go. Hell, Ron had refused to rail about it after a fashion, and it had been a hub of many, many fights between Ginny and her brother. Ron had said that in the end, it didn’t make a difference how many times she shouted at Harry to be reasonable. The cold, hard truth was that Draco Malfoy had passed Veritaserum under the judgment of not only Harry, but the five heads of the Order as well, including McGonagall, Moody, and Remus Lupin, who had more than enough reason to want Draco thrown out or even killed.

It was only when Ginny sought out Dumbledore’s portrait and demanded satisfaction from him that she’d finally been forced to silence her argument. When it came down to it, she could not call Albus Dumbledore a fool, even if she could still pin Harry as one.

But love? Harry _in love_ with Draco Malfoy? Everything inside her railed against it. Malfoy could be in love with Harry. He could even _need_ Harry. But that did not make Harry love or need him.

“I need something, too,” she muttered as she walked. “My brother’s dead… My mother’s Merlin knows where, I, I haven’t seen—” She rubbed the tears angrily from her eyes. _Haven’t seen the twins in months. No idea if Charlie or Bill are still alive, and Percy—Dad—_ Ginny felt impotent fury building, marring her thoughts.

_I need him just as much as you, you bastard. You of all people are not going to take what I have left!_

She had as much claim to Harry’s feelings as he did. More, even. But if she was perfectly honest, that didn’t imply a return of affection anymore than Draco’s feelings did. In the end, it was Harry who had to tip the scales. And in that, Ginny at last found unequivocal comfort.

Harry did love her. Had been in love with her once. His embraces during those few months in her fifth year, his kisses and whispered words as they’d fooled around in abandoned corridors, even the manner of his departure at the end of it, had told her so. He still cared for her a great deal, and she’d thought it only awaited the chance for them to be together in the same place and time to bloom into full fire again. And then the bonding spell: He’d asked her tentatively during the first moments they’d had together in months if she would still be willing to be with him. He’d told her of the ancient bond. He had not touched her, but there’d been no place for that, not in all her bewilderment and questions. He’d answered them all carefully, and asked her to be the one in the end, the one in four whom the Death Eaters might suspect. She’d agreed. Even though it was over a year since they’d been anything to each other, she had agreed, and he had gathered her close and embraced her the way they used to, holding her in quiet affection. It was like a dream she’d forgotten she was still having.

But for all that… Ginny’s throat burned. For all that quiet comfort, he hadn’t kissed her. 

She told herself that maybe the bond was contingent upon it, maybe every embrace and touch had to occur a certain way. The spell was so old that no one really knew how it would manifest. Other ancient spells were going into it to bind their magic as well, so the outcome was even less predictable. Ginny had never given much thought to Harry’s restraint, far too distracted by her own delight that he’d come back to her at last.

But now the poisonous tendrils worked their way in, and Ginny couldn’t help but fear that Harry’s actions were grounded in something far more simple. Perhaps he wasn’t in love with her anymore. Perhaps someone else had carved the floor right out from under her.

Harry and Draco had always had a mystifying sort of connection. Their fury toward each other knew few boundaries, even in school, and Ginny had spent many an evening arguing with herself—and in fifth year, with Harry—about why they should both fixate so heavily on each other. Why Harry felt the need that year to immerse himself in everything Draco Malfoy did, when Draco didn’t seem to know he existed. The loathing was palpable, an entirely separate presence in the room with them. She remembered being ridiculously jealous that Malfoy still incited more feeling in Harry than she, his girlfriend, could, and also recalled how stupid she felt afterward for being envious of hatred.

 _It wasn’t the hatred,_ her mind whispered traitorously. _It was the fire behind it._

Had Harry’s fire found a new outlet in her absence?

In the midst of her thoughts, Draco stopped in the cool shadow of the ridge. The rocks formed a little cul-de-sac from the wind just before dropping away into a vast, rolling plain. Ginny gazed across the expanse. Too smooth for the tumult of her thoughts, but just as barren. Draco dropped his pack and lowered himself wearily to the earth. His cloak was a mess and his hair was flattened over his forehead. He glanced up at her and then away.

“That’s it,” was all he said.

Ginny tried for her voice. “The plain.”

Draco nodded. His eyes went unfocussed. “It’s out there. We just… have to wait.”

 _For Luna._ Ginny fisted her cloak. She could see nothing out there except windblown grass. The implications of such a strong magical shield tried to stagger her, but she was too tired to feel much.

So close. She wasn’t ready to deal with this sad little triangle yet. But in mere hours, she would be shoved right into it.

“Fuck,” she whispered. Draco stirred. His eyes brightened into hunted awareness.

“What is it?”

Ginny’s mouth opened. “Oh—no. No, I just… It’s hard to believe.”

The flicker in those grey eyes faded and in spite of everything, Ginny’s heart panged. Draco nodded again and looked down. Ginny stood there, unformed emotions vying for attention. When one finally made it out, she barely knew what she was saying.

“I—” She bit her tongue, and Draco looked up again. Ginny gestured aimlessly at herself. “Is it alright if I go and… and…”

Draco studied, then rose and looked carefully around. His right hand lighted very briefly on his left forearm. “Go quietly,” he muttered. 

Ginny moved stiffly away, edging around the jutting rocks. Once out of sight, she stopped and leaned her head against the stone. Tears leaked down her face and she smacked a fist against the rock.

“No. Not after all this, Harry. You _don’t_ just get to find someone else.” But now all of Harry’s overwrought protectiveness over Draco at Grimmauld and the weird little rapport that stretched between the two men like a woven cord battered about her. If Harry cared for him, why ask her, why embarrass her in such a horrible way? Why raise her hopes only to dash them? Harry wasn’t that cruel. 

His determination the night he’d asked for her help had been real. She was the intended. But she couldn’t discount the fixation on Draco Malfoy, the strange and absolute trust Harry placed in him, and… and the way Draco was behaving now. Something had shifted between all of them. She wished Hermione were there, with her sharp eyes and keen understanding, ordering it all out for her. 

Ginny came to a decision. They were mere hours away from the answer. She would see Harry and she would not hold her own emotions in check. It would be simple to read their return in his eyes, and when she did, she would have her answer, and would not think about Draco Malfoy any longer.

But if… if she didn’t see it in Harry—

All of a sudden the possibility overwhelmed her, despite all her careful conclusions.

“Oh, gods.” Her chest was too tight. The despair was there, unlooked for. It had come before, but never with such conviction. She caught herself in a breathless sob. “Oh, Hermione, I’m not going to get him. Am I?”

The sky gave her no answer. She rubbed the tears from her eyes, allowing herself to at last feel the resentment she’d fought against for months, that there was no way to just _go back_ to when everything made sense and there weren’t all these shades of… grey. Ginny thought it odd that she should be laughing and crying at the same time.

* * *

Draco rubbed at the vague bruise lying behind the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes against all the grey and green. The wind coming in across the flatlands had turned chilly, hinting at more rain. His cloak, already wet, made an icy shell over his limbs. He longed for water, but hadn’t the energy to reach for the canteen.

Where before the words had flowed between them, now a blockage was forming, and Draco couldn’t bring himself to break Ginny’s moody silence.

He felt like a husk. The sudden burst of emotion the previous night, crashing over him like water exploding through a dam, had left him empty, scraped of every twinge. He stared at the gloomy, wet world with eyes that saw everything, but did not really comprehend. There was no anger, no sorrow. Nothing left. As though he hovered over the brink of some huge abyss, and his emotions had already fallen into it and were swirling there, unable to find him again.

There was one left: resignation. For everything, even the thirst parching his throat. An odd calm had settled over him, and yet he seemed outside it still.

He could make out the hills through the haze. The landscape was just as empty as his chest; not the faintest stirring of life. He was incredibly lucky the Death Eaters had gone the other direction. He wouldn’t have noticed them now until it was too late.

What kind of protector was he? He couldn’t concentrate on the task anymore. Ginny, when he even thought to look outside of himself, seemed to have drawn inward as well, her face a block of stone he couldn’t see through. Perhaps if he tried… But he soon gave up, and returned to the pain-edged space within. More a memory of pain, having cracked its shell and fled.

There was a castle somewhere in this field. Right in front of them, maybe. He had mere yards left of his journey, but for once, the end held no scrap of solace. He’d been able to feel something like joy at the prospect of being safe again, of having reached… what he wanted to reach. But there was no reason for it now, and he should have seen that coming, from the instant he stepped out on this mission. The end had always been the same and he’d fooled himself into thinking it might turn out differently.

What was he doing here?

Anger tried to climb out of the void, but it was just a ghost. What use was there for it anyway? He wouldn’t be able to act on it; he hadn’t the wherewithal to undo everything he’d done over the last few days.

He wanted warmth. Dry clothing and solitude. A single room in the depths of that evasive castle where he could just breathe. Try to locate himself once more, if there was anything left to find. 

The war had already sucked away two of his best friends. It was poetic justice that he, the one who had dragged them all into it, go next.

 _This is Limbo,_ he thought. Nothing had the ability to surprise him anymore. _Limbo, where I can’t think and she sits there fighting some battle in her own head, the grass glitters like dew, the sky rolls into purple, and we never find our way out._ Ginny’s face was twisting faintly again, the edges of an emotion he didn’t know. She would look at him every so often and then away again, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. 

Somewhere in this field, Harry stood in a stone room awaiting their arrival. Draco found he did not want the moment to come at all.

He heard Ginny shift suddenly, and dragged his head up. “What is it?”

Her face was turned skyward, eyes closed. A dreamy expression settled on her features. All the care lines had vanished and her skin glowed a healthy flush. The wind wisped at loose strands of her hair. She looked peaceful. As she hadn’t for the past three days. Her hair was vibrantly red against the rain-lush grass.

She belonged here.

“Can you hear it?” she asked.

Draco’s every nerve was instantly alert. But only the wind through the grass met his ears. “Hear what?”

“It’s Luna,” Ginny murmured. “It’s the song to guide us. We’re close.”

Draco inhaled through his nose… and then he _could_ hear something. Light, lilting notes echoing impossibly.

His chest loosened. He leaned into the sound and felt the notes caress him under his skin, soothing like balm. His breath escaped in a soft, sad gasp. Luna’s words rested against his bones.

_…the more I think on you… more I think long…_

He opened his eyes and found that Ginny’s were wide and fixed on him. Draco realised he had no idea what he looked like. He wondered what she saw.

There seemed no danger of stepping out into the open now. Draco lifted his pack, staring fixedly at a point just before the nearest hill. There was nothing there to see, but something pulled at his veins, urging him to look, _look, do not drop your eyes._ He began to walk, and Ginny followed.

_…Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?_

The weariness draining away like infection sucked from a wound. He was still empty but… but there was something coming, ready to flow in. He just wasn’t close enough yet. Luna sang sweetly in the curves of his ears and the hollows of his ribs. Her voice twined delicately through the ache. Draco breathed and tasted clean rain.

Foolish, crossing this empty field as though there were nothing to fear. But Draco did not fear, and when Ginny came alongside him, walking close at his side, he knew that she wasn’t afraid either. The Death Eaters had faded from his mind, mere spirits on the other side of some glass, beating their palms futilely at them as they moved past. 

He didn’t need to protect anymore, and the pain of that duty faded, allowing Luna’s voice deeper. He was the protected one now.

_…If I had you now as I had once before…_

It was minutes, many stretching minutes before the hill loomed, a gentle guardian cutting emerald into the bleak sky. Like a mirage rising off the h sands of a desert, the castle wavered into sight, stretching its strength into the heavens. Draco watched it flicker in and out, a dream puffing like smoke. It was massive, the magic infusing its walls a heady vibration against his nerves. Four towers, the glimmer of coloured glass in soaring windows, cold iron bolstering huge oaken doors that were stone-dry, regardless of the damp. He approached until it was close enough to touch, and felt Ginny right there beside him. Drawn, Draco lifted one foot and placed it upon the transient steps of the castle, and the eidelon flicker supported him as normal stone would. Ginny met his eyes.

And held.

And stepped up. 

They came upon the door together, and it swung open with the anguish of ancient wood wed to stone for thousands of years. Heat rushed out, bathing Draco’s face and body. Beside him, Ginny convulsed. Her hair left wet splashes across her cheeks. Luna’s voice reached out like a welcoming embrace, easing them inside. The door creaked ominously, sliding shut and cutting off the light.

Draco caught his breath and looked around. The front hall was cavernous, with a grand staircase made of stone curving upward along the far wall. Torches lining the walls and staircase cast a yellow glow, and Draco could see heavy tapestries clinging, bathed in daylight from the windows high above. Luna’s voice gradually slipped free of his bones, and Draco shuddered, bereft. Now he could hear her in his ears, and it was raw and beautiful, but it was only sound. 

He could also hear Ginny breathing beside him. She had gone pale; her lips were beginning to tremble. Draco sought inside himself, hoping that maybe… but the emptiness was still there. Lovegood had not filled it; she’d merely cloaked it, and there in the dim front hall, Draco had to deal with the pain of its presence once again. 

They’d arrived.

His mind tried to sling itself away, tilting abruptly enough to dizzy him, but another sound rapped out, dispelling the throb that tried to surface. _Clunk. Clunk._ Ginny raised her head unsteadily and Draco followed the sound until a figure formed in the gloom and came toward them.

“About time you got here,” a familiar voice growled.

Draco made out the warped features of Mad-Eye Moody in the torchlight. The old man glared at him, his beady eye rolling as it scanned his face and body. Draco felt the walls inside himself fall into place once more. Portcullises slamming, guarding. He drew himself back to his full height, and found he was sneering again. His chest hurt like a fresh wound.

“Where’s Potter?”


	13. The Reunion

**originally posted 5/17/07**

 

Harry clasped and unclasped his hands, leaning his elbows on his knees. The Infirmary was lit dimly by wall sconces, and was quiet except for the steady movements of George Weasley. Harry shut his eyes, stretching sideways to ease a kink in his ribs. George struggled through a bout of tossing and subsided, fingers clenching in some fitful dream. Muscle spasms skittered up his arms and legs. Harry watched until his friend was breathing easier again, and then looked over at the next bed. Fred slept there, curled on his side and shrouded in blankets. His face was still pale, but he had not woken or even moved since he’d tumbled into the cot two hours ago.

It was George who kept waking and drifting, unable to remain asleep for the fever, and then unable to stand the light when his eyes opened.

They’d been skirting through London for weeks. Fred had told Harry about the squalor of the city, the dark and the damp, and the ominous affliction that slammed suddenly into his brother’s body as they tracked Death Eaters through the tumbled boroughs and leaning thoroughfares. First the fevers, then the sharp neck pain. Headaches. There were no Healers left in the city; St. Mungo’s had fallen. George had finally confiscated his brother’s wand to keep him from using its healing powers and giving them both away. When George began to vomit, Fred had thrown caution to the wind and Apparated them nearer to the castle where Luna could find them.

Madam Pomfrey had dosed George with several elixirs, made him comfortable, and gone down to the kitchens to set more potions brewing. “I’ve plenty of them,” she’d muttered. “But they take time to make and I’d rather…”

Harry had only nodded. He understood. She’d gone, and here he sat, watching his friends rest in the first clean place they’d seen in months.

George would recover, of that Madam Pomfrey was sure. But it was difficult to listen to his incoherent mutterings in the stillness of the ward. Harry smoothed the blanket over George’s chest and thought about finding another pillow to prop his friend’s body up.

What was George seeing behind his eyelids? Harry pressed his fingers to his eyes to stop the burning. He’d been up since before dawn. But the heavier question persisted. Wizarding medicine was virtually nonexistent, save for the few surviving Healers scattered throughout the country. How many more of Harry’s friends were out there fighting not only Death Eaters, but the ravages of disease?

The wards had shifted a quarter of an hour ago, the subtle expansion and retraction that marked another arrival. Harry had considered going downstairs to see who came limping through the door, but in the end, George’s malady kept him in his seat by the bed. Luna slipped back into the healing songs she’d been singing for hours, but Harry had felt the comforting prickle of the summons.

He frowned suddenly and straightened. It had been stronger than usual. He’d not paid attention at the time; George had been thrashing, and hotter than fire. His body was not moderating itself at all anymore and his temperature spiked and fell without warning. Harry hadn’t been able to think about anything else. Now he rose and looked toward the closed Infirmary door, wondering.

Surely Luna would have told him if _they’d_ arrived. She knew how important it was to him. And Harry had greeted everyone at the door so far. Granted, there were only three others who had come staggering in, but he’d welcomed them all, until George and Fred arrived. He chewed his lip and thought about going to Luna’s room to ask. 

But she would have said something. Wouldn’t she have done? Harry’s nerves had been on fire all night, twisting his dreams into knots. When he’d wrenched himself out of sleep that morning, the sky was still pitch black. Today was the estimated day of arrival; Harry had not forgotten. But as each hour dwindled, a new fear began to grate upon his nerves.

They might have been caught. Hell, it could have happened days ago and no one in the castle would ever know. Luna could only stretch her sights so far and only at certain times, or she risked the collapse of the ward. She’d informed him when Ginny and Draco first set out, but since then, there had been nothing but what Harry’s own mind conjured. He’d been so preoccupied with what might be happening to them that he’d failed to consider what he might say or do when they did finally arrive.

He took a deep breath and sat back down in the chair, feeling his heart begin to race. _Today._ The countdown had begun. In a few weeks, give or take the time it took to get all the magic situated, he would be bound and ready to confront Voldemort one final time. And he wouldn’t be alone: Luna was gathering everybody she could cast her mind on, pulling the trustworthy ones toward the castle for the last strike. Just yesterday, Harry had welcomed Seamus Finnigan, and then sent him right back out to locate Hermione. Luna had been able to give Seamus a general idea of her whereabouts, but they were strangely erratic. Harry hadn’t wanted to think about what that meant. 

And after today, Blaise would be finishing his own mission. The end of the war was marching ever nearer. Harry rubbed his face, breathing as slowly as he could manage.

There was the final Horcrux to think about. It preyed upon his mind like a viper, slithering into his thoughts when he least expected it. It was better to think about other, more comforting things.

“Ginny,” he whispered. “Think of Ginny.” She’d be at his side when the end came, standing against Voldemort. But the thought of her there did not warm him as he’d hoped. He was more interested in—

Harry shook his head. As if he had any right to want that. It would never be given to him, and he could never work up the nerve to ask for it.

It had no place in this war and he was past wishing for the world to revolve around him and his needs.

_Harry._

He tensed, looking up at the ceiling instinctively. “Luna?”

 _People to see you,_ she whispered playfully. Harry’s heart nearly stopped in his chest.

He got up and hurried to Fred’s bedside, shaking his friend’s shoulder. Blue eyes opened, foggy with sleep.

“Fred,” he murmured. “Fred, I’ve got to go, someone’s arrived.”

Fred raised his head, features pinching. “What—George?” He struggled to sit up, wrestling with his blankets. “Is—”

Harry shook his head. “He’s fine. He’s still sleeping. I just didn’t want to leave you alone.”

Fred nodded slowly, still hazy from weariness. “Oh... yeah, Harry. It’s—yeah, go ahead.” He succeeded in pulling the blankets from around his shoulders and sat up, dangling his legs over the side of the bed. His eyes fixed on his brother. “I’ll watch him.”

Harry squeezed his shoulder and made for the door. “Pomfrey should be back in a bit.”

Fred nodded and shivered, still looking at his twin. Harry thought about telling him just who it was that had arrived, but he didn’t know for sure—despite what his instincts screamed—and Fred was in far too bad shape to be surprised now. It could wait a little while. Harry closed the Infirmary door behind him. Only then did the coiling of his muscles catch up with him at last, and, breathing too rapidly to be explained by his recent vigil, Harry ran down the hall.

* * *

Ginny’s hand slipped on the stone railing and she caught herself from pitching forward. She glanced over at Draco and saw that he was staring straight ahead. His face was completely emotionless, but he looked corded somehow, taut and waiting. Ginny’s heart thudded a swift cadence. She wasn’t ready for this. What was he drawing on that let him breathe more easily, focus so tightly? She could hardly keep her eyes from darting, searching every shadow for a movement that might mean Harry was there. 

What was she going to do anyway? Step aside and give Draco Malfoy her blessing? Tell Harry… gods, tell Harry to go to Draco instead? She wanted to laugh, hard and cruelly, at the absurdity. Here she was, developing a plan for either outcome, and expecting one look from Harry to tell her the way of the world. 

Moody clunked up the stairs behind them, and Ginny wanted to stop, wait for a moment, an _instant,_ until her world made sense again.

Footsteps came at a run, and then Harry skidded around a corner near the top of the staircase. When he saw her, his eyes widened. “Ginny!”

That was all it took; Ginny flung herself up the last few steps and into his arms. He caught her in a grip she’d missed and the smell of him overwhelmed her senses. 

“Harry,” she breathed.

His arms tightened around her, pressing her forward, and she squeezed him harder than she’d planned, burying her face in his shirt. He was all musk and sunlight and wood-fire, flushed skin, and the tingle of his magic trembled through her. He murmured her name and she almost forgot there were other people there.

Almost.

She pulled back just as Harry stiffened. There was no use pretending she didn’t know who he was staring at over her shoulder. His eyes were wide, pupils retracted to fine points.

“Draco,” he said softly.

 _Draco._ Not _Malfoy._ Irritation flared. She dug her fingers into Harry’s back, and he blinked, looking down at her once more. His gaze warmed. He pulled her close again, brushing his lips over her hair. “So glad you’re alright.”

“Me too.” Something must have come through in her voice because Harry’s forehead furrowed. His eyes tracked between Draco and Moody.

“What happened?”

Only silence answered. Then, Draco’s voice.

“Death Eaters, Potter. Hard to believe.”

The ice in his tone curled Ginny’s insides. Why did it hurt to hear him speak like that? He meant very little to her, and she even less to him. But that wasn’t true, and the quailing in her belly reminded her of it. Harry was still watching Draco. Ginny summoned her voice.

“It’s alright. We got away. They didn’t follow us.”

Harry gripped her arms, holding her away from him. He searched her face. “Did they hurt either of you?”

“No,” Draco muttered, too quickly. Harry’s eyes narrowed. Ginny knew the cut on Draco’s head was very visible.

“Draco. Are you alright?”

Ginny jerked, staring at Harry. His voice had changed. Very subtly—if she hadn’t been focusing on every detail, she would have missed it. He didn’t even register her movement. Ginny swept his face, heart climbing into her throat, and right then, Draco answered.

“Spare me your pity, Potter.” She could taste the sneer.

And Harry flinched. A twitch of his shoulders under her fingers, and a downward curve of his lips. A pain came into the edges of Harry’s eyes and was gone in a flash. Ginny was left gaping.

Harry blinked twice, then folded his arms back around her. “Thank the gods,” he sighed. “I was afraid—”

He broke off, the crack in his voice evident. Ginny wanted nothing but to kiss him, soothe the fear out of the body she knew so well, allow strength and vitality back in where it belonged. She splayed her fingers over his shoulder, giving him the slightest urge downward. _Kiss me, Harry,_ she thought. _Just a kiss. So I can feel you, alive, again._

Harry’s eyes flicked over her face, intelligent, and so worried. So tender. He bent his head and she felt a skip of blood through her veins, but at the last instant, his chin rose and he gentled an kiss against her forehead. His lips lingered and in that scant time, Ginny’s heart chilled in her chest. 

It was a helpless understanding, gone in an instant, but it razed a wide swath in its wake. Ginny shut her eyes, keeping the tears at bay. _Not conclusive, you fool. Don’t be such a child._

Harry drew a deep breath that changed the shape of his chest beneath her cheek. “Thank you, Draco, so much. I don’t… There’s nothing I can say to convey my gratitude.”

She heard Draco shift convulsively. “Then _please,_ don’t say anything, Potter. Your waste of words is so typical.”

Ginny’s mood spiralled further. So that was what bolstered Draco: anger. He drew it up like a siphon, and the words lashed across his tongue like arrows. But she could hear the grit and blood underneath, poisoning his perfect hatred into something merely painful, tucked into a corner somewhere. It was impossible to miss when she’d seen it shining from his very eyes.

Harry’s heartbeat was a dull thud against her ear. He was looking at Draco, she could tell, mute and surprised. “All the same. Thank you.”

Ginny peered around, still clutching to Harry’s body. Draco was staring at her. His face was stony, but his eyes uttered impotent, enraged cries to her soul. Harry’s arms tightened around her again and Draco looked away.

“I’m tired,” he muttered. “I’d like to sleep.”

Harry stirred. For a moment Ginny feared he would push her away. “There’s a room set aside for you. I can—”

Moody broke in. “Later. Malfoy, come with me. There are questions that need answering.”

Ginny turned away, unable to face the smouldering grey eyes. Harry continued to hold her as Moody clunked down the hall toward the next staircase, Draco’s footsteps following sullenly behind.

* * *

The room Harry led her to was draped in vermillion velvet and heated by a roaring fire. Ginny shed her cloak, laying it over one of the lush chairs. Her hands had begun to shake, and the orderliness of such a proper motion as folding her cloak beckoned, tried to return her to the semblance of security. Harry set her knapsack down by the hearth. When he turned to face her, the look in his eyes made her heart ache.

“It’s a sitting room.” He gestured, shifting from foot to foot, and suddenly he was the shy schoolboy again. “It’s closer than your room and you… looked cold.”

His earnestness was palpable. She had to smile. “Thank you.”

His lips quirked, flooding her with still more memories. She looked around. “Where exactly _is_ my room?”

Harry pointed upward. “Third floor. Mine’s on the fourth and Luna is further down this hall, in the heart of the castle.”

Ginny listened to the faint harp notes. The music was so mild; she was already growing accustomed to it. “It’ll be good to see her.”

“She’s been waiting to see _you.”_

“Who else is here?”

Harry crossed the room, but stopped before reaching her, standing behind one of the chairs. “Oliver Wood, Sinead Fawcett, and Morag McDougal. Seamus came and left yesterday—”

Ginny gripped the back of the chair that held her cloak. “Seamus was here? Is he—And Blaise? Blaise is here, too?”

A guarded look passed over Harry’s face. “Seamus left again to find Hermione. Blaise… isn’t here yet.”

“Oh.” Had she been hoping for it so fervently? Perhaps she needed her friends to distract her from what was coming. She made to sit down, but Harry stepped toward her.

“Fred and George are here, too.”

Ginny leapt back up, all other thoughts gone. “Where?”

“In the Infirmary,” he answered, and Ginny froze.

“Are they alright?” 

Harry approached, hands held out in placation. “Oh, Gin, no, they’re fine. George is… well, he’s sick, but Pomfrey caught it and he’ll be fine. I promise.” He touched her again, one hand settling on her shoulder, but there was still something missing. So much hesitancy, as though he didn’t quite know how to touch her anymore. Ginny fought to keep still. If only she could grab hold of him, take the kiss she wanted… But no. Wasn’t that was the whole point? His move would give her the answers she sought, and if she forced it, she’d never know what he would have done.

She concentrated on the more pressing matter. “Can I see them? I just need to—”

She stopped, but could see her unfinished plea in his eyes. He took her hand and drew her from the room, winding down a long hallway and through several abandoned chambers before pulling to a halt. Ginny found it hard to breathe for an entirely different reason. On the other side of that door was her family.

“Gin,” Harry said, hand poised over the door handle. “Fred might be sleeping and George’s potions put him under. I don’t know if—”

“It’s okay.” She didn’t care if they knew she was there. She just had to see for herself that they were breathing, living, out of harm’s way.

Harry nodded and pushed open the door, and Ginny squinted into the torchlight. At first all she could see were empty beds, and then two figures wrapped in blankets in the middle of the first row. One moved slightly and a shock of red hair appeared. Ginny shoved through the door, stumbling when she reached the first occupied bed. It was George, ash-pale but breathing steadily. She couldn’t help touching him, grasping his hand, but he did not stir. She glanced over to the next bed and was jolted to see Fred there, a blanket wrapped around him, face passive in sleep. It was a mystery why it should have shocked her to find him there, but even through the vibrant palpitations of her heart, she could see the difference in Fred’s slumber. _Natural._ George’s was potions-induced, but Fred was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion and she found she didn’t want to wake him.

_They’re safe. Merlin, they… Safe._

She dropped to her knees next to the bed, pressed her face to George’s hand, and found his skin hot. Harry stood a few feet away, watching her from between the beds. “He’s sick?” she mouthed. Harry nodded and knelt beside her. His breath came warm over her ear.

“Fever, muscle aches and spasms. A few days and he’ll be fine. Fred brought him right here as soon as he… well.”

She stayed there on the floor listening to her brothers breathe, and Harry remained beside her, silent as snow. She couldn’t put a price on this. A thanks to Luna for calling them home, to Harry and Madam Pomfrey for taking care of them, to… to Draco for getting her here in one piece to see; the danger was nothing compared to knowing she wouldn’t have to say goodbye to yet another brother. They were both here, safe for some time at least. The relief left her weak. Even if she had no idea about her other three surviving brothers, at least this moment was unfettered by their absence. Fred and George had been returned to her.

When Harry finally led her back down the hall, Ginny couldn’t think of a thing to say. There was plenty, obviously, but no way to utter it. The halls had grown darker and Luna’s voice echoed off the stones like a murmur in a cave. Ginny had no idea what time it was, but she could hear the roll of thunder outside. It almost sounded like the grinding of staircases.

Thankfully, the door to her sitting room closed the sound out, and the painful memories of Hogwarts sank away once more. At last, in the glow of the fire and the further muting of Luna’s song, Ginny found her voice.

“How long have they been here?”

Harry went to the hearth. “They got here early this afternoon. Luna’s calling everyone in. Oliver’s been here for days. It’s…” He fidgeted. “Well, you’ve arrived. So.”

“So.” And there they were, at that subject already. She didn’t think she’d ever be prepared to talk about it candidly. It was sex, in every sense of the word, and Harry was the end of the line. It didn’t surprise her how willing she was to commit to the idea of forever. She’d known it for months now. But there had never been an alternative in all those months, and Harry’s response meant absolutely everything now.

She wondered where Draco Malfoy was at this moment.

“I don’t know how many will make it here in time,” Harry was saying. “Or how many are still out there. When Hermione gets in, she may be able to give us numbers as far as the Death Eaters go.”

Something stirred. “Harry. The Death Eaters we ran into, they knew I was with Malfoy.”

Harry’s gaze sharpened alarmingly. He came quickly toward her, until she thought she’d have to step back to avoid collision. “They knew you were with Draco?”

“They said my name. Could have been a guess, but…” She trailed off. Harry looked away.

“She’s not dead. Not Hermione. They’re not...” One of his hands climbed through his hair. “What does Draco say?”

Ginny looked down, uneasiness coiling in her stomach. “We didn’t really talk about it.”

Harry frowned. “Why not?”

She shrugged; she didn’t want to talk about Draco. The two of them should have discussed it; it would have been the intelligent thing to do. And yet she’d allowed her personal issues to take over, and then they’d been in no state for any sort of intellectual conversation. “We were trying to get away from them,” she finished lamely.

When Harry looked at her this time, his entire body had softened, leaving the edges of desperation only around his mouth and eyes. “Gods…” His eyes swept over her as if touching her. “I owe him so much.”

Ginny swallowed, wondering if the strange light in his eyes was really for her. She’d thought it would be easy to tell, but now that she was faced with it, she had no idea.

It was time to grit her teeth and draw it out. Before her imagination ran away with her.

“He saved my life.” She watched Harry as she said it. “I didn’t think he’d… He didn’t have to do it.”

Harry stretched out an arm and gathered her near, but she didn’t miss the way his lips brushed her forehead again. Chaste. There was nothing behind it except for the concern she’d never before had reason to question. Harry’s breathing was rock-steady under her palms.

“Are you alright?” he murmured.

She summoned her courage. “One of the Death Eaters hit him.”

There it was. The ever-so-slight stiffening of muscles. “Forehead?”

She nodded. _He drew them away from me._ She should have said it. _Sacrificed himself. That’s why I need to know if you… that you don’t…_ But the words died somewhere in her throat. Any answer Harry could have given would be too unyielding. Ginny was beginning to realise that neither answer would leave her feeling good.

What would Harry say if she told him she had been the one to save Draco’s life? She didn’t think she could witness that. Oh, she was such a coward: the moment of truth was at hand and she couldn’t even manage the questions to see it through.

Why did Malfoy have to be a part of this equation at all? He never had been before. It was always just her and Harry, even with Dean and Michael Corner and Cho. Somehow she’d always, always known…

That was it: for the first time since she’d met Harry Potter, she didn’t know how it would turn out.

 _But he chose you. Not Draco._ That was the crux of it, but how had the choice been made? Because he loved her, or because he knew she loved him? Did Harry even know his own mind? Harry had told her that his adoration for her had crept up and enveloped him before he realised that his own feelings had changed. Perhaps something else had been building for far longer, hidden in insults and petty jabs, in an understanding that went even deeper than fancy, into obsession.

“He’s alright, you know,” she said carefully, fully aware of the dual meaning. Harry leaned back until she could meet his eyes.

“He was the best one for this, Gin. You have to understand.”

“I know,” she muttered. “You chose well.”

There was a ragged edge to his sigh. He stepped away. “I needed to know you’d be safe. If anything had happened… He knows things the others don’t, and I’ve never met someone more willing to—Ginny, I had to keep you safe. When Ron died, I…”

 _Is that all I am now?_ she thought sadly. _A promise to Ron?_ She knew it wasn’t as simple as that. Harry cared for her, and not just because he’d told Ron he would. But the balance had shifted somehow and she’d been apart from Harry for too long.

“You respect him, don’t you?” She said it before she could consider. But it was just a tangent and she knew the answer anyway.

It was still a shock to see Harry’s body unfold. His head lifted like a bird’s into alertness and that gleam she’d not been able to make heads or tails of in school now shone fiercely out at her. “If you’d any idea what he’s given… What he’s sacrificed…”

 _What about what I’ve sacrificed?_ But none of that had been for Harry specifically. Draco had clearly done this for Harry, not for her at all. Maybe he’d needed to be close to Harry again. Or maybe it was one of those decisions made in a moment of desperation, but he’d followed through, for Harry. He’d been ready to throw his life away to get Harry what he needed.

“He made our bond possible,” she choked out. Harry looked up sharply, hesitated, and nodded.

“Yes, he did.”

He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He’d tensed again. _Our bond,_ and he’d stiffened up in a way she couldn’t ignore. He wasn’t sure he wanted it. Ginny’s throat closed. His duty, then, and she might have walked into it blindly, accepted it for what she wanted it to be. She knew in that instant that if she said nothing, if she just carried on, Harry would continue all the way to the finish and she would have him, because it was what had to be done to stop Voldemort. But not because he wanted to be with her.

The tide of Harry’s moods spoke silently about where his mind truly was, who his thoughts were with. Tears filled Ginny’s eyes and she was glad he was looking away, lost in whatever ruminations her last words had conjured. But she needed to see it one more time.

“I never thought…” —it was a struggle— “that Draco Malfoy would do it.”

Harry’s lips curved. One hand clenched into a fist and released.

 _I did._

He didn’t speak, but she heard it. Some silent pain lined his face, crossing the strange openness there, and what was left of Ginny’s resolve crumbled to dust there in her heart.

She had her answer, and it stung like a barb. It didn’t matter that Harry might not be aware, because _she_ was aware. And now her foolish, righteous ultimatums for herself reared, spiking ache after ache, burying her under tears she had kept at bay. _Tell him to bond with Draco instead,_ her brain mimicked. _It’s what you’d planned._

She couldn’t. Couldn’t give him up like that, close the door so finally on what they had. She couldn’t give him to Draco Malfoy, _couldn’t go through with her necessary sacrifice._

It was the one thing she had the power to give to Harry, and she was nothing in the face of her self-pity. She’d actually thought she would be able to do it. But then, she’d never really believed she’d have to, had she? 

So selfish, all the way to the end.

“Harry.” Her voice cracked; the words weren’t going to come. Harry looked up, brow furrowed, and Ginny felt herself stumbling over an edge. She couldn’t say the words, so she found the next best thing.

“Harry, I thanked him.” Deep breath. “But he didn’t want it from me.” Like the last moments of a race, staving off collapse for one more crucial instant. “I think… Can you go thank him for me?”

Harry’s eyes widened. He straightened slowly, but she could see the energy, gliding and sparking through his frame at her words. “Are you alright here for a minute?”

She waved at him with one hand, unable to do more. “I’ll be fine. Don’t want him to think me ungr… grateful.”

Harry actually smiled at her, much wider and more adoring than anything she’d seen this night. “I’ll thank him for the both of us.” He crossed toward the door and glanced back, eyes warm. “Be back to take you to your room.”

Ginny nodded; already her chin was trembling. She watched him open the door and shut it again, leaving her with the crackling of the fire. Luna’s voice had silenced, a new sort of ward in its place, and in the quiet, Ginny wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed as hard as she could, trying to contain the sobs.

It didn’t take long before they rolled over her.


	14. Flashfire

**originally posted 5/28/07**

 

Draco stalked from Moody’s chambers in the blackest mood he could remember. The stone make-up of the walls was the only thing that kept them from being destroyed; his entire being sought for something to rip and tear and break. Draco could hardly breathe with the force of it.

It wasn’t Moody himself, though the man’s unfailing insinuations of treason had not lessened in the slightest. No, this was bigger than Moody, bigger this entire castle. Draco felt alive as he hadn’t in days, full of that perfect vitality that came with impotent rage, but a tiny part of himself watched in awe as it fed upon everything it could get its claws into.

His fury had red hair and freckles. Green eyes. Stolen wands and twisted snakes emerging from skulls. But mostly, it possessed dirty cornsilk hair, eyes the colour of smoke… and a decisive lack of anything remotely like resolve when it counted.

No, he had not alerted the Death Eaters accidentally, _or otherwise, you pompous, outdated old fool, why don’t you bloody say what you really want to say to me?_ He’d fulfilled his mission, saved them all, and for what? To watch his misery take a final shape?

Had he come this far, through the deaths of his parents and this infernal mess of a war, only to—he shut down the thought before it could gain momentum. Gods, it was _over._ There was nothing he could do to change it now, no backtracking and fixing to make things finally go his way for a change. If he could have done that, he might as well have gone back to a time before Pansy slipped into Voldemort’s shadow as a spy, or stopped himself from sleeping with Theodore that first night.

Draco sagged, catching himself against the wall. The space behind his eyes was burning. _You should never have brought any of them into this. They came for you, but they never knew why you were really here._ He hadn’t been able to tell Pansy at her deathbed, and Theodore…

Theodore had known, and had let it happen anyway.

Only Blaise was left of his three friends, Blaise who had made other attachments, whose reasons for fighting had changed. If Blaise died, it wouldn’t only be him that Draco’s short-sightedness hurt, but others as well—Seamus and Ginny Weasley, of all people—and could Draco ever make amends for the spiral he had pulled them all into?

Maybe none of them would survive this war. Not him, not Blaise, not Weasley or Seamus Finnigan. Or Harry Potter.

The thought of Harry dying only anchored the despair and anger more deeply. What in Merlin’s name could he do about either? Nothing. “You’ve already gone above and beyond.” Oh yes, he’d done his absolute fucking best.

He couldn’t _feel_ this. If he did, he would crash right into it and there was nowhere private enough to hide what would come pouring out of him. Best to shut it down and see if the light of morning couldn’t sober it out of him.

Too late, Draco heard footsteps ahead in the hallway, but he was so immersed in his turmoil that it took him several seconds to look up.

Harry Potter stood not thirty feet away, watching him with cautious earnestness.

It hit harder than he’d expected. Draco stopped dead in the hallway. And then loathed himself for it. He should have kept going, straight past Harry until he found the room they’d set aside for him. He didn’t know where it was, just that he needed its solitude. And then his mind caught up with him.

Oh. Of all people, Harry Potter in the middle of the hallway blocking his path. Draco wanted nothing but sleep, deep and blank, where there was no room for regrets. Frustration eddied: it seemed even that would be denied him tonight.

Harry came toward him at an easy pace. “Malfoy.”

He might have said more, but Draco was in no mood to hear it. “Potter, where’s my room?”

Harry halted several yards away. He glanced back toward the stairway rising into the darkness. “It’s one flight up. Are you hungry?”

There was no space left for hunger. “No,” he said, and made to go around the other man.

Harry shifted sideways into his path, forcing him to stop once more. “Wait. I wanted…” Harry drew a breath that echoed in Draco’s ears. “Ginny told me about your head.” He gestured and Draco’s hand flicked up involuntarily to touch the wound. “Do you need Pomfrey?”

 _“No,_ I don’t need Pomfrey,” Draco muttered, angry at the injury for making this more complicated. The front of his skull ached dully and persistently, and Draco wondered if he did in fact have some sort of concussion. Harry’s eyes travelled over his face. Draco remembered the wand slice across his cheek. Heat flooded his ears. Salazar. Maybe he could just go to sleep and let the head trauma take its due. There’d been no time for rest since the Death Eaters, but now there was nothing to stop it.

He looked up and found that Harry’s eyes had darkened, narrowing in on his face. “Malfoy. Are you alright?”

Draco’s fingers clenched around his pack strap. He suddenly wanted to fling the bag at Potter. “Yes, I’m bloody fine! What the hell do you care?”

Something even blacker flitted through Harry’s eyes. He stepped forward deliberately. The change struck Draco as very odd: this was no timid boy anymore, this was a man well-versed in the art of protecting himself and those around him. Draco edged backward. He knew that man, _very_ well, and he didn’t want to see him right now.

“Draco. I wanted to thank you. For what you did. You’ve no idea—” Harry’s chin dropped and then rose again. “Ginny and I both want to thank you.”

Why the fuck wasn’t Potter with his future bride, celebrating her safe arrival? Draco’s chest cinched up; he had to force himself to inhale. Because they wanted to make sure he knew how happy they were? “What?” he said flatly.

Harry tilted his head. “I want to thank you for bringing her here safely. I know you didn’t have to do it. There’s no way I can properly express my gratitude. But I…” His shoulders twitched. “We wanted to thank you.”

Something went askew inside Draco. He flung his pack to the ground and spread his arms wide. “That’s so touching,” he snapped. “I’d expected you to do this hand in hand, but go on. Please, express your undying gratitude to me.”

Harry blinked and stared at him. “Draco—”

“No, go on. If it will settle some sliver of guilt in your oh-so-noble heart, then by all means, unburden yourself.” He was sneering; he was so angry his vision had sharpened and now the shadows were endless and Harry stood out like a glowing beacon.

Harry’s brow shuttered. “What are you talking about? This isn’t about guilt, this is about gratitude. For risking your life.”

Draco laughed, a high-pitched burst that sounded strange to him. “Well, you bloody well ordered me to do it, didn’t you? So, you’re welcome, Potter, you are very, very welcome. I’m so fucking happy it all turned out for the best.”

Harry stalked forward so abruptly that Draco’s laughter died. “What is the matter with you? I’m not trying to pick a fight!”

Harry was only feet from him, green eyes sparking. For some reason, it only managed to fuel the anger beating through Draco’s body, and he was thankful. “No, we’ve all got to work together for everyone’s benefit now, don’t we? Well, good. I’m glad I’ve been able to do my civic duty for the cause. Why don’t you go and enjoy the laurels of our accomplishment and leave me alone?”

Disgust glittered around the edges of Harry’s expression. “I don’t understand you, Malfoy,” he gritted out. “Just when I think we can have a civil conversation, you twist it all to hell again.”

Draco stepped forward, backing Harry up a pace. “Oh, so we’re friends now? Potter, I was never your friend. You don’t even understand—” He jerked himself free of that dangerous tirade and pounced on another. _“Friends_ don’t order each other to do what you ordered me into, so don’t pretend that you know me somehow. I’m nothing more than your bloody soldier, not your friend!”

It was petty, so petty. Untrue. But he couldn’t stop it, and the seething in Harry’s eyes was the last, desperate nail in the coffin. The leader reared up in Potter, breathtakingly powerful. 

“Malfoy, I am sorry you had to go through this, but it’s not all my fault.” His voice held the deadly rasp of unrestrained authority and disappointment. “I wanted the best. You’re the best, and we need you. It’s our last chance to win this. We _have_ to win.”

Draco’s fury rose in response to the righteousness in Harry’s stance. Because it was all true, but it was all completely unfair, and he hated it, and Harry. “Oh, that’s pretty. Our last chance? How many last chances have you witnessed? You don’t know how many people I’ve watched die for your cause. In your _name._ And they don’t get remembered, they just bleed to death on the ground, and I watch them and I don’t die. Because it’s always about everyone else. It’s about you. When is it going to be about me? When is it going to be about what happens to me?”

Harry’s expression was saturated in anger, and getting darker. He scowled. “You are the world’s most selfish person, Malfoy.”

Something snapped. Everything, falling upon Draco from the highest heavens, and it wasn’t worth it. For the first time he felt it keenly, that it wasn’t worth it. His heart cracked in his chest. “Fuck you, Potter! _Fuck_ you. You’re the selfish one. You won’t even see what’s right in front of you, who’s dying for you. Who _would_ die for you. This is going to work and then where will we be? Where will I be? I hope it’s far away, somewhere where I don’t have to see any of this, where I don’t have to cart women into your arms so you can save the bloody world! I don’t fucking care anymore, not about this world, not about you, or your spells or your perfect war—”

Harry grabbed his arm, jerked him forward, and met Draco’s open mouth with his own. It hurt. Draco’s eyes flew wide. Harry’s tongue swept his mouth and the rest of Draco’s words choked in his throat. For one shattering moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Then he grappled with Harry’s shoulders and forced him away.

Draco stumbled backward. The feeling within him was expansive, completely uprooted. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and the anger took over. Pure, devastating rage. 

“Fuck you,” he whispered in a broken tone.

* * * 

Harry blinked, and then Draco was on him, crushing Harry’s mouth to his, one hand gripping his arm painfully. Harry grabbed the body against his, not close enough, they weren’t close enough, felt himself being pushed, staggering, and it felt free like he never had. Draco bit at his lips, shoved up against him; Harry’s back hit the wall, then his head. Light dazzled his eyes in tiny sparks. But Draco’s hands were suddenly there, climbing through his hair, slipping behind to cradle his head. Touching with tender fingers.

“I’m sor... I...”

Harry shook his head and felt the dizziness swamp. He gripped Draco’s nape and edged him closer, until he had his mouth again. 

“Doesn’t hurt,” he whispered.

Draco made a strangled sound and pushed away, only to turn Harry around and fall back, pulling them both to the wall again. Harry pressed him full-bodied into the stones. He felt Draco heave against him, all panting breaths and tugging hands. Harry stilled the trembling of Draco’s hips, thrust his own against them forcefully, and tasted Draco collapse on his tongue. But Draco’s strength was formidable; Harry couldn’t have broken free even if he’d desired it. Draco’s fingers curled into his hair, gripped there, and his tongue slid over Harry’s, touching and sweeping, hesitating only to suck at him as though he wanted his breath.

Draco smelled of rain and the tart scent of earth. Harry’s fingers caught on snarls in his hair and he worked them free, smoothing his palms down Draco’s cheeks. So pale before, now filled with colour. Harry could taste Draco’s journey on his tongue and the flavour was intoxicating. He bucked even closer to Draco’s body, felt his fingertips skitter over the raised, worried flesh at Draco’s temple, and felt the whimper of pain against his lips.

Harry groped and found cold fingers, wrapped his hand around them. His knuckles scraped the stones and Draco’s hand clenched hard around his. His name came in a gasp, filling the silence of the hallway. Draco lurched against him. Sparks flashed through Harry’s vision at the contact. He tore his glasses from his face with a shaking hand and then forgot about them. Draco wriggled free of Harry’s grasp; a second later the press of fingers underneath the hem of his shirt made Harry pull out of the kiss. He gripped Draco’s hips and lifted, settling him up higher on the wall, then thrust bodily against him. Draco let out a faint moan; his head fell back, knocking against the stones. Hands tangled in Harry’s hair and pulled.

And it just wasn’t enough. 

Harry’s mind supplied the answer. He wrapped an arm tightly round Draco’s waist, the hot skin of Draco’s back beating into his forearm. He tugged Draco as close as he could manage, bit at his throat, and whispered a “Hold on,” then felt the twisting jerk of his own Apparition. Draco’s cry of surprise was lost somewhere in the transfer, and suddenly they were in Harry’s room. The fire had gone down to the coals, and his bed was a mess of sheets and blankets. Draco caught him in another searing kiss and Harry fell into it before pulling free. Draco tore his own cloak off, then dragged Harry to him again, yanking his head back to bare his throat. Harry growled, catching Draco with one hand around his waist, undulating his hips, and earning a choked groan for his efforts. Draco fought to stand upright, and Harry urged them both toward the parted curtains of his bed.

But Draco had him in as tight a grasp as he’d ever felt, a hand climbing relentlessly up beneath his shirt, the other clutching the back of his neck. The pain was a delicious thrill down his spine and Harry arched until he could only feel Draco’s heat. He grappled with Draco’s pullover, yanking too hard and hearing a grunt, but then it was off and there was nothing but bare skin beneath his palms. Draco shoved him down onto the bed and climbed atop him, fitting body to body, wrestling with the hem of Harry’s shirt again. Harry let him drag it up over his head and fling it away, mesmerised by the flex of bare muscle. Draco shifted, the slightest lapse of control, and suddenly Harry didn’t want him there. 

He twisted up and out, and Draco gave a surprised shout as he was flipped onto his back. Harry straddled him. Draco struggled once, seeking purchase, until Harry bent and sucked his tongue into his mouth. Draco moaned deep in his throat. His knees rose, locking Harry’s hips in their grip, and Harry couldn’t stop the flex of his pelvis into Draco’s, or the delicious friction it elicited. When Draco shuddered, head to toe, Harry’s chest ached. He dipped his head to lap at the expanse just beneath Draco’s chin. A hand climbed up into his hair again.

“Harry,” Draco managed, voice wavering like a candle’s flame, “I—You…”

“Draco, shhh,” was all he could force out. Words just didn’t match the emotion screaming through his brain. Draco Malfoy was in his bed. It was still incomprehensible, and Harry didn’t want to comprehend it, he just wanted to feel it and taste it. Be it. Climb inside Draco, because that was the only place he’d wanted to go in years, see him unravelled, pull apart the threads himself, and even as he thought it, he knew that Draco was tugging his own threads out at the seams. 

He wanted this man so badly he could have wept.

Harry found Draco’s trouser fly, and Draco arched into his touch, hips bucking spasmodically. Harry squeezed his thigh to steady him and pushed the buttons free. Draco stuttered on a word, and then Harry felt hands scrabbling with his own trousers. He lifted himself away just enough to give Draco room, already hating the space between them. Draco got his trousers down at last and Harry kicked them off, not even bothering to make sure he’d completely freed himself before returning the favour. Draco’s hips rose off the bed more from Harry’s efforts than any aid from Draco himself, and then his trousers were gone as well and Harry saw pale skin stretching across red linens. Draco’s knees bent and Harry’s body slid between them on its own. He couldn’t tell who the moan came from when they finally touched.

Draco’s eyes were open, deep as thunderheads. Fixed on him. Harry kissed his mouth, his cheek and the skin just beneath his eyes. Long eyelashes fluttered shut, dusting Harry’s forehead. Harry could taste the sweat and old dirt from days outside. It splintered through him, reminded him of where Draco had been. He sought the cut across Draco’s temple, the angry welt lancing Draco’s cheek. Death Eaters. Something in Harry clenched and threatened to burst.

Gods… What had he done to Draco? He could have lost him to this war any number of times. He could still lose him, in so many ways, and he’d already been the instrument of more of Draco’s pain than he ever wanted to think about. His heart warred with itself: How could he feel these things for Draco and send him to his death at the same time? 

Harry needed to touch him, to feel the life within this body. He’d not managed to take it away yet; for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he’d been granted a reprieve in spite of his stupidity. Draco was here, moving under him and against him and _through_ him, and a single thought ricocheted through his brain, that he wasn’t going to give this up for any reason. He wasn’t going to lose this.

Draco’s body arched sinuously—helplessly—against his. Hands clutched. His hips thrust so tightly to Harry’s that Harry felt the lightning spasm skating through Draco’s muscles. He gasped, and Draco made an equally desperate sound. His hips shuddered again. Again, rolling up, pressing to Harry’s. The sight of Draco tightening, giving in, caught at Harry’s breath. His heart gave a strange, sublime shift, hurting for one glorious instant; Harry moaned, gathered Draco to him, enfolded his arms and legs, and met his mouth hard.

Draco’s breathing was a faltering rasp; he clutched onto Harry tightly enough to bruise. Incoherent words fell into the scant space between their mouths, and Harry lapped them up, found Draco’s mouth again and stroked deeply with his tongue.

Felt something loosen at the weak whimper that broke from Draco’s throat.

An unbearably beautiful creature was in his bed. Draco’s muscles were a sensual flow beneath his skin. Harry found the white scar from York marring hip and back, and followed it like a silken ribbon. Draco’s hand climbed to his own mouth. He bit his knuckles and squeezed his eyes shut and shook. Harry gave in, placing his lips over the curve of that throat, and Draco’s hand kneaded back into his hair. He swallowed convulsively and Harry found himself attending the movement with this tongue, copying it, worshipping, unable to resist.

Draco’s legs lifted, squeezing precariously around Harry’s waist. His trembling rippled into Harry, sparking a hundred tendrils of arousal. Harry shuddered, felt Draco gasp into his neck. “Harry, I want—Now—”

He looked down and found Draco’s eyes hooded, absolutely drunk on sensation. He tucked his hands under Draco’s knees and pulled them up. Draco reached back for the headboard. The bed creaked. Draco let out a breathless sound, and suddenly Harry couldn’t help himself. He thrust down, feeling the body beneath him clench. He found the curve of Draco’s thigh, the taut muscle of his backside, and then his entrance. Draco whimpered again and Harry whispered a spell, then pushed one finger into his body.

Draco’s lips parted, air hissing in and out between his teeth. Harry kissed him thoroughly, working at opening Draco up enough. He was close already, so damn close, and he could feel Draco’s body begin that slow, dangerous undulation that meant climax was nearing. One of Draco’s legs climbed up and cinched around him. Harry forced himself to slow down, to avoid the edge for as long as he could.

But when he finally slid inside, there was nothing powerful enough to keep him in check. The heat was unbearable, Draco’s body writhing desperately under him, Merlin, constantly moving, Harry thrust hard, pushing Draco further up the bed, nothing but the creak of the old wood and the gasps like a torrent from Draco’s lips. Draco raked fingernails down his back. The splash of pain spiked through him and Harry cried out. His body went swiftly out of his control. Couldn’t think, just see: skin glowing gold in the light, flaxen hair splayed across the sheets, one white-knuckled hand gripping the headboard as if to break it off. Draco’s head fell back—his eyes had rolled up—he jerked so violently that Harry thought he’d hurt him, and then Draco was coming, a helpless chaos of movement, tightening around Harry, _tightening—_ Draco thrust back twice, rolling his hips in a broken arc, and Harry fell hard, his climax flooding like a deluge. He couldn’t breathe; he was drowning. And all the while Draco shuddered beneath Harry, coaxing it from him in a steady stream of white light and dancing sparks. 

Harry dropped at last, utterly spent, across Draco’s body. Trickles of almost-pain shot through him, every touch against his skin an electric shock. He groaned, enduring it helplessly, waiting for it to subside. His mind… was a mush. He could only breathe, and taste the flavour of Draco’s skin and sweat on his lips. He felt legs clench around him, then release and drop away. With the last of his coherent thought, Harry raised himself from the heaving body of his lover and dropped to his side on the bed.

Draco’s eyes were shut, cheeks a bright red flush. He lay sprawled, completely uninhibited on top of the mussed sheets, one arm thrown up above his head. Harry struggled to find a cleaning spell in his mess of a brain, but wasn’t sure in the end if he’d actually cast it. He had to be closer to Draco. There was nothing else except that.

Wriggling, Harry insinuated a leg under Draco’s bent knee, flung an arm across his chest, and gathered him in until he rested against hot, sweaty skin. Draco fumbled sluggishly with the bedclothes, finally succeeding in extricating the edge of a sheet. He tugged it over them both and exhaled. Harry pressed as close as he could get. Only then did he let himself drift, listening to the hitch and sigh of Draco’s breathing.

* * *

When Harry awoke, the sun was setting the floor stones aglow, Luna was singing brightly of greensleeves, and Draco was gone.


	15. Draco at the Door

*originally posted 7/8/07**

 

“Luna!”

Harry tore through the door, shirt in hand. Luna sat there plucking at a lute and humming softly. Her eyes had been closed, but they opened to reveal curious ocean blue.

“Where is he, Luna?” Harry said urgently.

Luna opened her mouth and let a high note float out like a bell chime. _At the front door._

Harry’s mouth went dryer than cracked earth. “Leaving?”

 _Oh, no. He can’t._ Luna tilted her head and strummed the lute strings.

Harry took a split second to let the relief crash over him, then spun and made for the door again. He called over his shoulder. “Don’t let him out, Luna!”

 _He’s very angry with me._ He could hear the grin in her voice.

He raced down the hall toward the staircase, leaping the top four steps before catching himself against the railing. The next floor tilted crazily and Harry slowed. It would help nothing to fall down the stairs and break his neck. But his hands were trembling.

He hadn’t known what to think. He’d just looked over and seen the empty side of the bed. He’d reached out, and his mind had barely registered the cooled sheets before he was sitting up and pulling on his trousers. Searching for his glasses and finding them inexplicably next to his bed. But there was no time to wonder. He didn’t bother with Draco’s room; the only one who would know instantly was Luna, and he’d been terrified of what she might tell him.

The night before was clear as glass in his mind, though he couldn’t remember exactly what had prompted him to grab Draco, to kiss him like that. He’d had no right, that was certain, and yet Draco had lurched back into him and sent him reeling with an embrace Harry hadn’t imagined in his deepest dreams. His body still tingled with the aftershocks. One thing was plain: He didn’t know what he’d do if Draco got away into the wastes of the war. Like some sort of spirit, haunting him for a single, burning, glorious night, and then vanishing into the foggy past.

Even with his brain screaming caution, Harry took the stairs three at a time, barely clinging to his balance. The castle was quiet except for Luna’s singing; doubtful that anyone else was up yet, though watery sunlight spilled across the steps he clambered down. It didn’t matter to him if he should meet anyone. The only thing that mattered was stopping Draco from leaving the castle.

* * *

Draco’s wand poked at his thigh where he’d shoved it into his trouser waist. He pounded the door with a fist. The morning sun struck in stripes across the wood and iron braces, but the warmth it gave was not nearly enough to calm the shudders that threatened.

The castle was quiet, save for his pounding and the haunting lilt of Lovegood’s lute. Draco cursed her through gritted teeth. It was her doing, her fault he couldn’t open this door. He was weak with hunger, thirsty, and utterly crushed under the weight he’d carried for so long. He struck the door with the flat of his hand and paused to breathe. His own heart throbbed in his ears.

He was tired. So very tired. He’d been going solely on nerves for the past four days.

He’d woken that morning, expecting the cold ground of some cave, Weasley a few meters away, because his good dreams were never the reality.

It had been a shock to see Harry’s smooth back before him, rising and falling with barely audible breaths. Draco stared for several seconds before the enormity hit. And then he couldn’t get enough air. 

His... his body hurt. Muscles ached in ways they hadn’t since Theodore. His thighs were stiff. His back felt deliciously stretched, and between his legs—Draco squeezed his eyes shut, air hissing in and out through clenched teeth.

He could remember Harry’s hands on him. Cradling his hips. Sliding around to knead the muscles of his lower back. Pressing hot points into his shoulders with his fingertips. Every stroke burned into his flesh as though Harry’s hands still moved over his skin. _He could recall every touch._

Harry’s back rose and fell gently with each inhalation. Red tracks marred the skin of his shoulders. Draco swallowed. His fingernails. His stomach writhed and for a lasting second, he thought he would be sick.

Draco pushed himself up slowly, careful not to jar the bed, then hung his feet over the edge, trying to find his equilibrium. But he had no idea how to do that anymore. There was just movement, escape. He cast around and found his trousers in a heap toward the end of the bed. His filthy sweater, draped over the far post. And his cloak, a sad huddle of black fabric near the window. Draco stood hurriedly, halting in his tracks when he heard his bedmate sigh. Harry rolled over, one hand trailing across his chest, lips parting and then closing once more. His eyelids flickered but did not open.

Watching Harry the whole time, Draco gathered his trousers up and pulled them on, then snatched at his pullover and dragged it over his head. He made for his cloak and nearly tripped sideways over his pack where it rested neatly against the bedpost. He stared at it.

He’d dropped it… out in the hallway. When he’d—Draco dashed a hand over his face, tasting bile. House-elves. Gods, they’d known he was here and not in his own room. 

The very idea made him moan. Draco scooped his cloak from the floor, then grabbed the strap of his bag. Harry moved again, one bare leg bending restlessly beneath the sheets. Draco caught himself looking and jerked away. He let himself out of the room as quietly as he could.

And now here he was on the ground floor, trying to break through solid oak with nothing but his hands and listening to the sickeningly sweet music of the very person who was keeping him from his goal.

He wiped at his eyes and cursed himself. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn’t _cry._ He hadn’t even cried when Theodore died, not for the right reasons anyway. There was no reason why he should be crying over this.

Where had his strength of will gone? Had it finally been kicked out of him back in the woods, in the damp caves, staring down the length of that Death Eater’s wand? He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the protest of the muscles in his back and legs. Such a steady ache. And he knew where each tiny hurt had come from, could name the stroke or the thrust that had given each one to him. His left shoulder felt as though it still bore the print of Harry’s fingers, five lasting bruises to keep him from forgetting what he’d done.

And what had he done? He’d given in to the last thing he wanted, and the first thing. He’d let it become just another dark night in an endless river of dark nights.

 _You couldn’t be content, could you? You had to take it further._ The tears welled yet again. Draco slumped against the door.

He’d never felt so lost, as though he’d been ripped at the seams and shaken apart. He had what he’d longed for, what he’d imagined every night for the last two years, and it had been so brokenly perfect, and now where was he? What in Merlin’s name was he going to do?

He’d never realised until now how much the dreams, the anticipation, of what had just happened had driven him. And now...

Now what?

The war had eaten up yet another part of him, and he’d just stood there—no, lain there, for fuck’s sake—and let it happen. Thrust into it until it died a slow death, bloody well welcomed it, pulled himself up against it, and let his senses explode into a frenzy off of it. Had he no self-control at all? Obviously not; he could even remember the sounds he’d made, the words he may or may not have spoken aloud with the night’s blackness pouring in through the windows, and where was Weasley? Had she known? Had she been waiting for Harry while the two of them had both taken a little solace from the war, a dirty-quick thrust and release and a few scant hours of peace, until the next avalanche fell upon them?

Except _he_ hadn’t just taken solace. He’d never had the ability to do something so simple with Harry Potter. No, he’d taken what he’d been yearning for, for months, and now it was carving him up with slow, deadly knives because he’d given it more meaning that it was meant to have. Than Harry meant it to have. 

Just another night. Another tryst to be filed away and, in time, dismissed.

And wasn’t he just the expert on that?

Draco’s stomach jerked, threatening to relieve itself of what little it held, but it wasn’t the sensation of purging. If he gave in, the heaves would go on and on until he collapsed or died, whichever came first. The door felt cool against his forehead, but there was nothing that could steady him, and all the while, Lovegood’s music flowed over him, carefree and mocking.

_Never fall in love with an idol._

He’d lost himself somewhere. Forgotten that his first duty was to himself, because even if he wanted to be altruistic, Salazar forbid, there was nothing he could do for anyone else if he himself were not whole. And he was breaking, doing it alone this time because there was only one person left in this world who he could call family. The rest were dead or vanished, and he’d fooled himself into thinking that he could cut a different niche for himself.

He’d lost them all by trying to save them when he was not fit to save anyone. Pansy and his mother, his father, Theodore... All the rest.

 _Did you think you could save Harry, too?_ Hysterical laughter threatened. Draco pushed away from the door and stared at up it. Surely behind it lay the answers to all of his problems, if he could just get through. Harry didn’t need saving, especially not by Draco Malfoy. It was Harry who saved, and maybe that was it: the previous night had been about trying to rescue himself from the mire he’d slogged into, to cleanse his body inside and out with something he would never really be worthy enough to deserve from Harry Potter. One night was all he’d had a right to, if he’d had a right to anything, and he’d wasted it pretending it was something else.

He knew then that he couldn’t stay in the castle and watch. Assist. He was almost sick at the thought, and barely railed against the flood.

“Draco?”

Silence thudded through him. Surely not. But he knew that voice. Just the night before, it had uttered his name in a way he’d never, ever thought he would hear. Impossible to pretend it a dream. He suspected that he would only be granted nightmares from here on out anyway. 

Draco turned, uncertain whether he would fall or remain standing as he did, and saw Harry standing at the bottom of the staircase. His hair was a wild, nymphish tangle of deep black. A shirt was clutched in Harry’s hand and his bare chest heaved under the assault of heavy breathing. Draco choked. Such glorious imperfection housed in one perfect body. Harry stared at him through eyes that Draco could only remember in the shimmer of low candlelight and sliding sweat. The same rich green roiled in them now, the same fierce presence.

 _Tell him to fuck off,_ a feeble voice piped in his head. But the words died in his throat. He couldn’t say that to Harry. Not after they’d—

Draco swallowed hard.

Harry came closer, crossing the sun-lanced floor on bare feet. Even in this, the man was all elegance. Such self-possession. Draco resisted the urge to press back into the door, to get as far away from Harry as he could. He stood ramrod straight, without the door or the walls for balance, and watched the boy saviour approach. There were marks on Harry’s chest and throat, reddish bruises. Their presence sent his head reeling, knowing he’d been the one to put them there. But it was like some misted dream.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked. Soft words, meant only for him. Draco was suddenly afraid of who else might be awake and listening, watching. Witnessing the state of Harry’s body and knowing just how it got to be that way. Draco drew himself upright inside as well as out.

“I’m fine.” His throat was dry. He licked his lips without thinking, and Harry’s eyes flicked to follow. Something rebellious inside coiled and Draco shoved it down. “Just wonderful, in fact. Good morning.”

He tried the door again before Harry could respond, but it remained steadfastly shut and he could still feel the other man’s presence behind him like a shadow. There was movement as Harry shifted. 

“No.”

It was biting, not in tone but because of what it meant. Harry’s calm flowed into that one word and Draco’s hand slipped right off the door ring. His palms were sweating. He sighed, feigning an exasperation he was nowhere near feeling, and turned to face Harry again. But Harry had come even closer, only a few yards away now, and Draco was not prepared. His eyes skipped down of their own volition, to Harry’s stomach and the naked hollow of his hipbones above the line of his trousers. The memory of being held against that stomach, his own thighs sliding up to grip those hips, rocked him. Draco shut his eyes, but the sensations remained, called into existence by each horrid little thought. He remembered the warm flush of Harry’s skin beneath his trousers and the slick flex of muscle as he—Something small and delightful curled deep in Draco’s loins, threatening to shoot out through his body, and he felt heat begin to climb up his spine. 

Merlin. He couldn’t even look at Harry now. His nights with Theodore had never done this to him. In the end, his friend had always been staring back at him in the morning, comforting and knowing, quiet with what they had done yet again. Draco had been able to pretend Theodore’s eyes were a touch greener. But now there was no need to pretend and the painful, sharp reality of it speared his innards.

He jerked up and stared Harry right in the face, searching for his composure there. He’d always known that face, even if he hadn’t known that body until now. He could face the countenance of the Boy Wonder if nothing else. “No?”

Harry’s mouth opened and shut, and Draco caught the ripple of his throat as he swallowed. Harry glanced down, obviously reaching for composure of his own. But when he met Draco’s eyes again, there was little of the uncertainty Draco’d counted on. “No. I don’t think you’re alright.”

Draco sneered. “I assure you, I’m fine.”

Green eyes flicked down and up again. “You haven’t eaten, Draco.”

“Well. Then I’ll remedy that situation in the near future. Now if you don’t mind?”

He gestured toward the door and a strange look crossed Harry’s face. Amusement? Relief? Well, then. Potter didn’t want him to go. Hoping to make something of a nasty situation, no doubt, drawing all of his lackeys back into the fold before the final battle. Of course he’d never let Draco out. But even Draco’s anger couldn’t stand against the desperation tying a sour knot in his throat.

“It only opens for Luna,” Harry said, his voice equally strange. Draco found real hatred in his heart for the odd, flighty girl, and seized upon it.

“Tell her,” he gritted out, “that I’ve places to be. She can’t keep me in here. Moody’s orders.”

Harry’s expression flickered and Draco felt a quick twinge of triumph. Let Potter make what he wanted of that; by the time the mistake was discovered, he’d be far enough away to stay away. And there were plenty of people out there to take his mind off of his troubles, perhaps permanently. But Harry’s eyes narrowed, and Draco’s wild hope sank into nothingness.

“Draco, you don’t have to leave,” he said.

 _Don’t I?_ He wished he could just say the words. But they were netted by the remembered scent of Harry’s skin and the concern in those eyes. Draco pursed his lips, dangerously close to teetering off the edge. He had no idea what lay below him. “I haven’t time for this,” he said at last, horrified at what he heard creeping into his voice. Still Harry stood there, close enough to touch if Draco just reached out, felt for the slope of that shoulder. There was warmth there that he could no longer ignore, now that he’d tasted it—felt it ripple within his body, _succumbed to it, you bloody fool, give it the name it deserves—_ but the idea that it wasn’t meant for him and had never been snapped the noose taut. It hurt to breathe.

Suddenly it was impossible to be that close to Harry. Draco put a few feet between them, and Harry stopped.

“Draco—”

“What do you _want_ from me, Potter?” It was cold enough to surprise even Draco, but he drew himself under the cowl of his frustration. For a split second, the old mantle felt natural again.

Harry’s eyes widened. He raised a hand in front of himself. “Nothing. I don’t want anything from you.”

Why did it cause so much pain when he’d already known? He barely kept from biting his lip by sneering at Harry instead. It didn’t feel successful; Draco had to get out of Harry’s presence before more pieces fell away.

“That’s just fine,” he spat. Exhausted tears threatened anew, and he spun toward the door, wrapping a hand around the iron ring. “Tell Lovegood to let me out.”

Fingers slid around his wrist before he’d finished the last word. Harry’s warmth flamed into his body, familiar. Draco shuddered.

“Let go. Let go and look at me.”

Draco wrenched his hand away. “You can’t tell me what to do.” But there was no force in it, and Harry’s hand encircled his with a gentle grip. He turned Draco around at last. Draco saw his face slacken in surprise and knew that he’d noticed the tears welling. Hated Harry for seeing it, for causing it, but he could only stare back miserably. Harry’s hold on him tightened and Draco felt the touch of Harry’s other hand on his arm, running up and down in cautious sweeps.

“Draco,” Harry breathed.

 _Gods, let me go._ He must have whispered it, because Harry shook his head. His hold became firmer, kneading into sore muscles, and Draco wilted under it. His knees buckled; he rode his momentum slowly to the floor. Harry bent with him, easing him back against the oaken door, and settled down beside him, drawing his knees up. His hand remained clasped round Draco’s wrist. 

“Please don’t leave,” Harry whispered.

Draco slipped into silent sobs, shaking from the force of them. Harry just sat there in the empty front hall with him, Lovegood’s voice wafting around them like a breeze, and let him cry.

* * *

Blaise crouched in the shadow of several bushes, eyes trained on the landscape below. The waters of Loch Ness shimmered like sapphires, and the cloud-studded sky carved periwinkle over the hills. The Muggle visitor centre down the slope was dark and caved in, all tumbled pylons and cracked roofing. Wind whipped through the new ruin, bearing ash trails away as it reached into hidden nooks and crannies.

Beyond, Castle Urquhart waited in the sunlight, deceptively peaceful. Its walls were a crumble of mossy stone. Blaise could see the remnants of fallen rooms and towers.

He’d come across several snare hexes as he’d approached, but to his trained eye, they were easy to see. Half of them were the invention of the Glenfallons, an ancient Wizarding family who had come to an ugly end centuries ago during the plague years, and standard classroom fodder for any sixth year Defence student. Severus Snape had been careful with his Slytherins; they knew the Glenfallon bewitchments like they knew their own heritage, and how to dismantle them. 

The other spells had been the stuff of nightmares. Literally. Blaise had managed to avoid setting off the deadly curses they contained, but he’d also been unable to find a way through them. Several times he’d had to reroute, into the icy waters of the loch or up around three hills before switching back to continue his approach. Voldemort had been more than careful, he’d been absolutely murderous. 

Blaise sensed the strange deadness of the land surrounding the castle. It stretched for miles, leaching the inherent magic from the soil and water. Everything had been sucked clean out. To Apparate anywhere within a mile was to court certain and sudden death; there was no natural magic left to cloud such a potent spell. Blaise couldn’t begin to imagine the price that Tom Riddle had paid to achieve such a vacuum. 

It would have required sacrifices. Hundreds. And not all of them Muggle. And what had Riddle become as a result? It was unknown territory to the Wizarding world, but Blaise was certain that Voldemort was no longer fully human. If he ever had been.

He only hoped that his seeking spells had not been sensed by whoever dwelt underneath that castle. 

He doubted there were many Death Eaters left in the stronghold. With Hermione, Hannah, and Ginny running around in the wilds, and Harry Potter vanished like a slip of fog, their attentions would doubtless be focussed elsewhere. But the only thing keeping his magic from being detected was probably the twisted, black draw of the new wards over the castle itself, and those were more than enough to make Blaise pause.

He could get inside. Getting out again would be the real question. Then again, Blaise had always known that the importance of his mission didn’t lie in his escape.

The most disconcerting part was not the impending doom. Blaise shivered in the weak sunlight, hunching back into the hillside and wrapping his cloak tightly around himself.

It was that no one really knew where he was.

In all his days of fighting, running, hiding, and killing, Blaise had never had time to just sit and think about what the end might look like. He’d imagined a huge battle, with plenty of potions-slingers and a hundred or more Death Eaters. Spells whipping the air into static, the shouts of a thousand other people through the smoke. He’d never pictured it as a solitary event, bunkered in the hillsides of an ancient lake with no one near enough to see. He was alone, and this _was_ the end, or at least the beginning of it. That snake, the one he’d trumped up into a monstrous behemoth in his dreams, was the doorway to the finish line, and his part in it began in solitude.

Only Harry Potter knew where he was. And Pansy. But Pansy was dead. Blaise hadn’t even been there to see it. His friend had been inside the walls of the fortress below him, underground in the dank and mould, passing through corridors that seeped the waters of the Ness, and finding her way back to the light again and again to tell them all what she knew. It was thanks to Pansy’s efforts that Blaise had the layout of the fortress memorised, a cold and empty tableau in his mind. 

He would need it before he ever saw daylight again.

It was the fifth day. Blaise had been careful to double-check, to keep his watch dry and his dates straight. The fifth day since Draco had walked off into the darkness with Ginny behind him. The fifth day since he’d seen Seamus, or anyone that he knew, for that matter. He had only to wait until night fell to find a way inside the castle’s new wards and breach the inner chambers.

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about how many Death Eaters might still be in residence. It had been enough of an intrigue to wonder how the Muggles would have felt to know that their delightful historical site had been transformed, warped into the very thing that might end the world for everyone, wizard and non-wizard alike. It was an old ruin whose significance to the Dark Arts had been lost to time, and frankly, Blaise couldn’t give a shit about what that significance was. It had nothing to do with the magic he’d have to face once the sun set. That were all Voldemort’s, sinister and razor-sharp. It would cut just as deeply as a razor, but not nearly as cleanly.

It would take time, but every ward was surmountable, especially the types he felt eddying through the air below. Pansy had given him enough to combat a third of what lay around the castle, and Draco’s ancient and dusty texts had been most helpful once devoid of their curses. If Blaise never looked at another tome again, it would be too soon. He’d lost more sleep than he wanted to admit committing the ponderous ward-breaking spells to memory. It was bad enough that he’d have to shed and use his own blood to get through them.

Would Potter come after him if he never came back? Blaise thought about eating what was in his pack, but he still wasn’t hungry. He doubted that Harry Potter would come to find him. They all had enough on their plates without worrying about one man lost in some Death Eater’s stronghold. But it curled his stomach. More than ever, Blaise felt his isolation. He would have to get himself out if he ever wanted to get out; there weren’t going to be any heroes waiting to smash the gates down.

And that, of course, just left the strength of will to get himself _in._

Pansy had done it, over and over. That was comforting, in a weird sort of way. And Blaise was much more prepared than she had been. Still, the most primal part of his body knew exactly what he was facing, and his instincts screamed at him to get the fuck up and go, further away, not closer like he planned.

The hours wore on and the sun slipped into the soft gold of late afternoon. Blaise knelt on his knees and dug into the earth with both hands, piling the loose soil to the side. He hollowed out a shallow trough and then pulled three candy bars and his jumper from his pack before settling the bag carefully in the hole. He’d already memorised the landmarks, the specific angles of the castle. But in all likelihood, he’d be leaving his bag here, buried in this hillside. There would be precious little time for escape, much less retrieval.

Blaise stuck one of the candy bars in his mouth, and tucked the other two into his trouser pocket alongside his wand. He hardly tasted the chocolate. It was simply a source of energy at this point, and he wasn’t stupid enough not to partake. His body felt frighteningly devoid of protection, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to go into that fortress un-magicked or risk being caught immediately. Seamus skittered around the edges of his thoughts, but he pushed him away with days of practice and the knowledge that he had to do so.

He had to find that snake. There was nothing worth thinking about except that.

The waters of the lake rushed up in small waves, whitecapping in the wind. The sun cast long shadows among Urquhart’s ruins. Blaise sat back into the hillside, running his tongue over his teeth, and waited for nightfall.

* * *

Harry met Draco’s mouth with a tentative kiss. Draco’s lips were soft, slightly swollen, and they gave hesitantly beneath his. Harry felt his exhalation, a tiny flutter against his lips. He touched his tongue carefully just inside Draco’s mouth, feeling the solid ridge of his teeth before stretching deeper. He tilted his head. Draco made an infinitesimal sound; the tip of his tongue flicked shyly against Harry’s before drawing back, and Harry pulled up.

Ash-coloured eyes stared up from a wide-open face. Harry looked back, uncertain of the strange waver there. Draco’s cheeks were flushed, and the warmth of his body beat into Harry’s. He wanted to kiss Draco again, surprise him again, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Draco to be surprised by such a gesture. To look back at Harry as though he’d fallen open and could not draw himself together again. Draco shifted against the bedclothes, one bare leg sliding along Harry’s side, and Harry pulled further back. Draco’s throat was flecked here and there with the pinking ministrations of Harry’s mouth, and his chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm. 

Something lurked behind the grey, words or thoughts, Harry couldn’t tell, but they had not been uttered, even in the gentling sunset through his windows. Draco’s body sprawled across Harry’s bed, limbs entangled in and against Harry’s, and yet oddly separate. 

It couldn’t have been more different, this afternoon. Last night had been full of speed and groping hands, breathless mouths seeking gods knew what. What Harry was coming down off of now was quieter, a rush born of patience and stamina, and a shallow but lasting climax that had dropped from Draco’s body at last on a choked gasp. But it had been no less needy, or desperate. Draco’s fingers still squeezed his bicep, forgotten there in the shock of a final kiss unlike the frenzy of the others. 

Harry wanted nothing more than to kiss him like that again. 

“Alright?” he murmured. Draco gazed up at him silently, making Harry’s heart twinge. The man’s face might be open, but there was little there to latch onto. What Harry wanted was still buried. 

But Draco’s eyes flickered down and up, and his lips parted minutely. Harry leaned back into him, feeling the give of muscle and the firm pressure of bone beneath his body, and kissed Draco again. Draco’s mouth opened wider and Harry soothed with his tongue until he felt Draco shudder and draw closer. Just a tiny shift. Harry tasted and remembered, keeping himself from asking for anything except for what was being given freely.

Draco’s pupils were fully dilated when Harry finally pulled back. He moved restlessly and Harry finally allowed the smile he’d been holding back to slip through.

They’d barely spoken to each other all day. There seemed to be nothing to say, or at least no way to say it. Draco’s collapse that morning had caught Harry completely off guard, and it was only then that he’d understood the full toll taken on Draco Malfoy. The man was a wreck, and Harry had been unable to say much of anything for fear of what would come flooding out. 

It was his fault, after all.

Somehow he’d gotten Draco from the front hall to the kitchens, hoping that food and perhaps the time and space to clean himself up properly would put colour back into his cheeks. He’d already begun to forget what Draco’s eyes looked like enlivened, but the absence of that energy struck hard, winding him. When had he ever been close enough to understand it so thoroughly, to recognise all its facets? He hadn’t realised he’d formed an attachment to so intangible a thing until he saw Draco devoid of it.

Faced with the vitality of the previous night, Harry hadn’t been able to stomach the loss. But he’d felt Draco’s physical absence just as keenly. Letting the door to Draco’s room shut between them had done damage, locking Harry out in the hallway with only Luna’s song for company; his fingers itched to throw open the door, to reveal Draco once more. He wanted to walk into that room, stand inches away from him again and just sniff the air, remind himself of that fleeting scent. When the door shut, he was absurdly afraid it would never open again.

But it had. And then his own door had opened and closed behind both of them. All in silence, for Draco said nothing. Just looked at him from behind that interminable mask until Harry had him on his back across his bed sheets again and was cracking the facade apart in gasps and clutches. 

Legs almost too tight around his middle. He could still feel the bruises there, just under his ribs.

He wasn’t sure what time it was. Ginny hovered in the back of his mind, reminding him that he had other obligations, but… Damn it, he didn’t know when he would ever be granted this chance again, and the memory of her presence faded in and out like a ghost, paling in comparison to the physical heat of Draco’s skin, the feeling of a taut, angular body beneath his own. There were wounds here that needed to be taken care of, but there was no Healer on earth that would ever be able to see them, let alone heal them.

Harry had no right to be touching him like this.

He knew Draco’s wounds because he’d bloody well put them there. He could see his signature on them just as if they bore his magical stamp. They might as well have; the thought flashed through Harry’s mind that he’d marked Draco with something of himself, something any Death Eater worth his or her salt could pick up on, and then he’d sent him into their very arms with the orders to get through at any cost. The idea was foolish, of course; Draco bore nothing of Harry’s magic, but still the danger hung there, along with the sour tang of Harry’s guilt.

He hated being their leader. He hated the fact that they all looked at him as if he were the bedrock of their operation, even Mad-Eye Moody, who had more than enough right to tell Harry to shove off, stop making all the damned decisions. And what had he to show for his leadership? Fred and George, exhausted and deathly ill in the Infirmary respectively. Ginny, somewhere in the castle with only the cold walls and her own thoughts to distract her, which were surely no distraction at all. An army scattered Merlin knew where, perhaps all dead or rethinking their agreement to follow a mere boy into battle. Hermione and Hannah, out there risking their lives for a bond Harry couldn’t even get excited about anymore. And an enemy that was winning handily, picking them off one by one by one while Harry hid and ‘built up strength.’

It was shameful. At least he’d not marked Blaise Zabini this way before sending him into the viper’s nest, Harry thought disgustedly, even as he laid his lips against Draco’s breast. No, he’d only sent Blaise there in the first place, that was all. Another hopeless cause in a series of hopeless causes. He wished it hadn’t been Blaise. If only Pansy had not been unmasked. Or Theodore Nott, with all his dark watchfulness and his calculating eyes… He would have been the best choice.

But could Harry ever have sent Nott to Voldemort, with Draco obviously enamoured of the man? He’d known they were sleeping together. It wasn’t so much a secret as a fact that hadn’t been concealed. He’d already broken so many pieces of Draco’s life away; how would he have been able to take his lover from him, too?

He felt fingers stroke over his forehead, a slight, ephemeral sweep, and then they threaded into his hair, twisting vaguely. Feeling. He met Draco’s eyes, felt the tangle as his fingers made their way across his scalp and down behind one ear. Tentative strokes. Draco’s gaze roamed along the path his fingers were taking, and Harry knew with contentment as well as a shameful sorrow that the other man was studying his hair. The texture of it. The colour. Perhaps seeing the black of another’s. 

It was not the idle wonderings of what Nott and Draco did in bed that fascinated him, how they moved together or what it might feel like to have sex with another man. Harry had not wondered about that for nearly two years, since the night after Bordeaux fell. The man had been French, and he’d left Europe the following week, losing himself in the mess of magical refugees making their way east. The stress of battle and constant peering over his shoulder had long ago sent Harry seeking the comfort of male companionship when that of women just did not dull the ache, and the man in France had been a fine ally, and a fine bedmate, while it lasted. But it had never been meant to last, Harry’d known that from the moment it began. Despite his personal feelings. So Harry did not wonder what Nott and Draco got up to in the darkness of their bedroom or tent, or wherever. 

He did wonder what _Draco_ did in bed, how _Draco_ moved. How a person crushed so many times could still summon the means to love another, to worship him every night he could and agonise over his safety on the nights he couldn’t. Harry knew how close Theodore Nott was to Draco, and he also knew he could never have knowingly sent Nott into the clutches of the Death Eaters. Not after all the other things he’d already stolen from Draco.

 _And what are you taking now?_ Harry fought against the grimace, teasing his lips over the slope of Draco’s chin and tasting the raw salt of their exertions. The throat under his fingers convulsed; Draco bent his head down and found Harry’s mouth, easing him upward. The familiar taste flooded across Harry’s tongue again, forcing the pain deeper. What was he taking? The only thing Draco had left, his body, but Merlin, Harry wanted it, even though he knew it was wrong. It was the sating of a long-held desire, one he hadn’t fully understood until it was about to be granted.

The worst part was that he realised he liked holding Draco, cradling his body close and feeling the inhale-exhale as he breathed. As though he were the one breathing that rhythm. Draco smelled of clean water and tart soap; his skin was supple in a way it shouldn’t have been after nights in the wild, and his hair was the silk of down. 

Harry had not yet acknowledged how he felt about actually… being inside Draco. There was no way to reminisce about it when this pall still hung over them. It was pathetic, but he didn’t want that memory to be tainted, even if it wasn’t rightfully his to own.

“Harry.”

The first word Draco had spoken in hours. Harry’s body tried to freeze. He looked up, wondering what had prompted it, and what would follow.

Draco’s gaze drifted a bit, then slid back. But he said nothing. Whatever had been about to come out had receded. Harry couldn’t help himself; he smoothed the tumble of hair across Draco’s forehead. His hand lingered over the worrisome cut, now scabbed over and washed clean of blood.

“What happened? In the forest.” It came out in spite of his efforts, and for a moment the guilt that had been steadily climbing fell back.

Draco’s hand rose, brushing over the cut, over Harry’s fingers. Draco pulled his hand away, letting it fall back to his side. His eyes closed. “She hit me.”

“A Death Eater.”

Draco nodded. Drew a breath that Harry felt against his own chest. Again it was a shock, knowing Draco was lying naked beneath him. 

“She caught you?”

A shake of his head. “No, she… I was alone.”

Harry frowned. “Where was Ginny?”

An instant later, he wished he hadn’t said it. Draco’s body stiffened. His eyes opened, but he wasn’t looking at Harry, had turned his head instead to stare at the bed curtains. His voice was flat. “I told her to run. And then I went…” Draco’s lips thinned. “But she didn’t listen. She came back.”

Harry studied the dark swoop of Draco’s eyelashes. Had he never noticed the length of them before? He wanted to place his lips over them, feel their drift and flutter against his mouth. 

He had _no right_ to want such a thing from Draco.

“You went back to the Death Eaters.”

This time Draco rolled his eyes. Harry could still feel the hand on his bicep and wondered if Draco had perhaps forgotten it was there. “Seemed like a good idea at the time, Potter.”

A thousand imagined reasons soared into Harry’s head, bumbling and cluttering around each other. The meaning of them all overwhelmed him and he shut his eyes briefly, trying to pinpoint the questions he had to ask to sort it all out. “How… Who came back?”

Draco’s eyes flickered away this time, the light in them fading as he remembered. Or tried not to remember. “Weasley,” he whispered.

“Why was she gone?” Harry blurted out. “You… She… And you went back?”

Draco’s mouth opened, but nothing came out until— “Yes.”

Harry couldn’t get Draco to look at him. And he needed him to, as though he would find all the answers there in his gaze if only Draco gave it to him fully. “They found you?”

Draco’s head swivelled toward him. “Why are you doing this, Potter?” he asked in a tired voice.

“Asking you about what happened?”

Draco’s ears pinked. His body shifted restlessly beneath Harry’s. Harry caught his breath as he realised what Draco really meant. He pulled away, rising slightly over Draco to look down at him. Draco’s expression had an earnest lilt, but his emotions remained inaccessible. Harry caught his breath.

No, he wasn’t… wasn’t ready for that question yet. Not yet, gods, why did it always have to come back to his reasons? He didn’t think he could lie to Draco, and it came to him with a start that he hadn’t lied to Draco in years. Not since their Hogwarts days. Harry pushed away, sat up.

“What kind of question is that?” he muttered.

Draco’s face froze into something colder… and then slipped all the way into a scowl. A hand crawled up to shove his hair from his forehead. “Well. I didn’t expect it to be that difficult for you.”

The slice of anger into their comfortable heat scraped Harry’s nerves. He grew annoyed. Ridiculous for Draco to think it would be an easy thing to answer, an easy thing to think about. It stung that Draco had such a lack of concern over the question. What had this meant to Draco anyway?

Had it meant anything?

“Oh, I don’t know, Malfoy, it’s just hard to reduce something like that into one sentence, yeah?” he said irritably.

Draco stared at him stonily, nearly wiping away the memory of his open expression a moment ago. The sweat still shone on his skin and Harry was already having trouble remembering how he’d looked. It was painful; he’d wanted that memory so badly.

And here he’d been, expecting it to mean something to Draco. Salazar take him, he _knew_ what it meant to the other man. He’d known it before he even tipped Draco down onto his bed, known it as soon as he plunged his tongue into that desperate, willing mouth. It had just been so easy to forget. To ignore it for a few hours, and pretend—

Pretend that he hadn’t been the one to bring it all to a head in the first place. 

Just a replacement. A substitute for the person Harry had taken away from Draco. Or not even that; maybe Draco had closed that part of himself off completely, and Harry was nothing more than a convenient release.

Well. He owed him that. If he owed him anything, it was the relief of his pain for a single, breathless night.

When he looked up, Draco was watching him again, shadows darkening his features. But there was nothing darker than the hollows beneath his eyes. Bad dreams. Lack of sleep. Hell, the loss of everyone he’d ever cared about. One fucking night wasn’t going to make up for all of that. Or one afternoon.

“What?” Harry muttered, and Draco moved restlessly.

“It’s just a question.”

His voice was subdued, even a little timid. Harry saw the reflection of his own feelings in Draco’s eyes, but it wasn’t the inner twin of those emotions. It was as though Draco had put up a mirror, bouncing everything back at him. He couldn’t see what Draco was thinking or feeling, and that was more telling than Harry liked to admit.

 _It’s only been a couple months since Nott died. You think he’s even been with anyone else since then_? Unlikely. Harry had seen how Nott looked at Draco, so much so that he’d avoided witnessing the answering gaze, unable to watch that plethora of emotion returned. That sort of love didn’t die. It snuck into the bedroom and twisted everything that followed for months, turning other peoples’ faces into that lost lover, every sigh and moan into a cheap imitation of that singular voice. Harry had felt the inklings of that in France, and he hadn’t even been in love with the bastard.

Sometimes fucking someone was enough. Nott had done much more than fuck Draco.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Harry breathed at last. The silence that followed was indecipherably heavy. He concentrated on his hands until he couldn’t take it any longer. When he looked up, it was to find that Draco’s eyes had lost a few of their walls. Confusion was the only name Harry could give to the look on his face.

“I don’t understand you, Potter,” he stated.

Harry licked his lips. Tried swallowing, but the words were still there; there was nowhere else for them to go. And perhaps it was high time he spoke his sins aloud anyway. There was no better person to hear them.

“I’ve taken so much from you, Malfoy.” He shuddered. “So many.”

A heartbeat. Draco’s gaze went unfocussed, then snapped back sharply, and something in the muscles of his face spasmed. He sat up with a fluid ripple, hanging his legs over the side of the bed. His shoulders hunched and as Harry watched, they shivered. The movement travelled up and down Draco’s body so quickly Harry blinked.

And nearly missed the sound Draco made. A barely audible word on the back of a breath.

Draco stood with a jerk, naked body glowing in the relief of firelight, and left the bed. He grabbed his trousers, stumbling as he put his feet into them and yanked them up. Buttoned them. Lifted his shirt from the bedpost with a shaking hand. Harry could only watch. The words had crumbled like sand in his throat, and now Draco was moving for the door.

“Draco,” he forced out. 

Draco paused for the briefest of instances. Harry thought he might turn.

He almost did.

But Harry’s voice abandoned him again, and Draco left the room with nothing but the creak of the door as it closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a STUNNING piece of artwork for this chapter by the lovely Naadi: [**Please Don't Leave**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/683937). Please, please, please go show Naadi your love!


	16. Old Wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short(ish) chapter up tonight because a Long chapter is coming.

**originally posted 6/18/07**

 

Ginny squeezed her brother’s hand, perhaps too tightly, but she couldn’t distinguish anymore. The hospital ward was quiet except for his breathing. It had become easier; the change had been audible even as she sat beside him.

She hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to go. Harry’s failure to return to her two nights prior had not been unexpected, but even the best mental preparation in the world had been unable to counter this daunting vigil: watching the closed doors of first the sitting room and then, when she finally roused herself from her tears and followed a house-elf upstairs, her own chamber. Both sets of doors had remained closed into the small hours of the night, and the loneliness of the castle as it slept settled around her like a voluminous shroud. Sleep had been out of the question, even exhausted as she was. She’d paced, found food in her knapsack, paced some more, and waited.

Harry had never returned.

Finally, sleep had taken her senses from her, and then Luna’s song had broken across her ears, drawing her from her stupor. The castle was extremely quiet; she’d walked, and ultimately been unable to bear the intense emptiness. Somehow she’d found her way back into the Infirmary.

Fred’s sleep had been light; she hadn’t been able to resist touching his shoulder. Achingly familiar blue eyes opened, and Fred sat up blurrily. 

“Gods— _Ginny?”_

It felt so good to be held by her brother again. She clung to him wordlessly, letting all the aches and pains drip out of her. He’d changed: his shoulders were thin and much tenser than she remembered, and she could feel his ribs as she hugged him.

“Gin.” Fred kissed her hair, squeezing her hard enough to hurt, as though he couldn’t remember how to let go. “I didn’t know you were here, I thought… Merlin, Ginny, thank the Founders.”

“George?” she asked when she could. “What happened?”

They both looked toward the bed and watched the unsteady rise and fall of their brother’s chest. Fred’s fingers were clenched and Ginny reached to uncurl them. His voice was hollow. 

“Sudden. He wouldn’t let me heal him. I could have, if only—” Fred rubbed a hand over his eyes. Ginny stroked the mussed hair from his forehead. He hadn’t bathed yet and she could see the filth in rivulets on his flesh.

“You’re a sight,” she said. Fred looked at her for a long moment, and then the tiniest of smiles cracked his pallor.

“You’re no Occamy yourself, you know.”

It was the first time she’d laughed in days.

They’d eaten there in the Infirmary, wondered together about where their mother and father were, avoided the subject of Ron entirely, and traded stories about their brushes with Death Eaters. It was easy to talk to her brother, even about the difficult things. There was no need to explain her pain to Fred, to wonder if he knew the depth of her misery, her loneliness. He experienced it just as she did.

And now, an entire day later, Ginny held George’s fingers as Fred slumbered beside her, and tried not to think. It had been easier when she’d feared for George’s life. But it was clear he was recovering, though it still came in slips and slides. Fred’s conversation had silenced her self-reflection for a time. Now there was nothing except Luna’s voice to remind her of where she was, and that Harry was somewhere nearby.

Harry had arrived in the Infirmary that morning, clean-clothed and alert, and Ginny had found one last sprig of hope in the twisted thorns in her chest. His eyes, vibrant jade, had widened when he saw her, and there was no hint of the anxiety she had been feeling all night. Perhaps… perhaps he had just gone to bed, and been caught up in more important things for the past day. Perhaps he’d wanted to give her time alone with Fred and George.

Perhaps he really had just thanked Draco Malfoy and been done with it.

She’d spent the morning smiling, wondering at how normal it felt to be in the same room as Fred, George, and Harry again. Certainly, they were missing some familiar faces. But this was the Harry of her fifth year and all the years before, tossing jokes back and forth with her brother, running a hand sheepishly through his thatch, and genuinely happy to be in her presence. Ginny had blossomed into it, let herself tumble because she knew this ground, and she knew she would be caught.

When Fred had drifted back to sleep, Harry’d led her from the hospital wing, down toward the kitchens. Ginny had been in high spirits.

It wasn’t until after their meal, when they reached the staircase leading up from the cellars and saw Draco Malfoy coming down, that Ginny realised her mistake.

It was clear from the instant their eyes locked. Draco halted in mid-step, gazing down at them, and Harry’s body went absolutely still beside her. It only lasted for the flicker of an eye, and then they’d moved past each other. But the damage was done.

Ginny didn’t know how she knew, but she did. They’d… slept together. Had sex. At some point in the past two days, Harry had taken Draco Malfoy to his bed.

It was in the way Draco carried himself as he passed them on the stairs, and the way Harry nearly turned. Nearly. She hadn’t looked, but she knew he’d glanced back.

Gods. The idea of Harry’s body in someone else’s hands—in firelight. Torchlight? Had they been able to hear the rain as they’d—as they’d moved—Ginny’s legs had threatened to crumple right there in the stairwell. She sought Harry’s eyes and found them vacant, lost somewhere back down the stairs. Where Draco had gone. The pain struck her heart so hard she looked away, to hide the burning behind her eyes. Yes. Harry had had sex with Draco Malfoy. In his bed, or Draco’s, it didn’t matter. And something had happened there that shuttered his good mood.

She would have found some modicum of satisfaction in that if not for the wrenching hurt in Harry’s expression. 

Ginny forced herself to release George’s hand, thankful for the solitude of the Infirmary and the fact that Fred was asleep. There had been no salvaging of her mood after the meeting on the stairs; she’d only been able to think of coming here, of being with her blood again, her family. What she had left of it.

 _Why in hell did you go back in the forest?_ she thought bitterly. _Why didn’t you just let them have him? He was going to sacrifice himself willingly, you could have just—If you’d only stayed away—_

Ginny couldn’t decide what felt worse: the sick horror at those thoughts, or the fact that a small part of her still very much wished they were the reality. 

George gave a cleansing sigh and turned over in his sleep. Tears pricked Ginny’s eyelids yet again. “Oh yes,” she whispered to herself. “So big of you. Let the Death Eaters have your competition and all is well again.”

No one answered.

“Shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled. Her jaw ached from holding back all the frustration. Here she was, playing at some romantic story, and when it all fell down around her, she could only weep for her folly. Seven hells, what sort of person had she become?

She longed for the days before, when she hadn’t known that Harry had slept with Draco, or how deeply Draco’s feelings for her intended went. When she was just nervous and excited by the prospect of knowing Harry intimately again, of seeing the end of this war in sight at last. Blaise and Seamus with her by the fire, sharing food and telling stories, awaiting the next turn of the road, the next step in whatever plan was being hatched for them all. It was just a game then, and everyone was alive and healthy and together. Scattered physically, but together somehow in a way they weren’t any longer. She knew it was stupid, that people had been dying left and right no matter what she understood about Harry and Draco’s relationship, but at least she’d felt safe.

And with Seamus and Blaise, she’d felt inexplicably safe. It was hard to put her finger on what made her feel so secure. She’d been with friends there, and she’d known they were lovers, that they did more than sleep side by side during the night. But it hadn’t been a threat to her. It had been a comfort, to see that the war still held no sway over that sort of emotional attachment, that love was still a reality.

Fuck. She probably had Draco to thank for their existence, too, somehow. Wouldn’t that just be the way?

“Merlin, where are you?” As if calling them would bring Seamus and Blaise to her like some wild Accio. They’d always been proof that she was headed for something greater. She couldn’t get it out of her mind that if they were with her again, here, she could have that fabled love for herself once more. The chance of it, at least.

She held George’s hand, listened to Fred breathing, and wondered helplessly where her friends were at that moment.

* * *

**Grimmauld Place, one year ago**

 

It was like watching his life from beneath the surface of a pool. Muted light, muffled voices, his heartbeat a dull thud in his temples.

Blaise didn’t know if he was asleep or awake. He had _been_ awake, surely, for over two days. He remembered the ache in his calves and thighs, the pounding of his heart as he ran. Skirted. Dodged through copses of trees that seemed overly vivid to his taxed mind. He’d watched Death Eaters pass the places he hid, their wands drawn and trembling before them, the circles under their eyes dire reminders of what he must look like. He remembered feeling a clouded fear. They were determined. They had his stamina, and were they not just like the Order in their diligence, their commitment? They would forgo sleep to search him out, and perhaps fall to the earth in a shaking stupor rather than return to their Lord without him.

But they had not caught him. Or maybe they had, and this bed, this familiar warmth and musty smell, these dark, cracked walls and this withering candlelight, were all a hallucination. Grimmauld wallowed heavily in the night’s silence and he strove to grip the soft cotton of his sheets—remind himself of their reality—but his fingers did no more than twitch.

His head hurt. The ache whispered through his dreams like a dark spirit, and he could feel Seamus there as well, circling the pain, stroking at his mind with slow fingers. For long moments, Seamus was beside him, and he thrashed out, reaching, to find the bed empty and himself not even certain he’d moved. Perhaps he had dreamt it all.

A glimmer intruded at last, the sallow light of day, or fire. Blaise forced his eyes open once, and then slipped back into sleep. In and out. In and out. Had he left anyone behind in the forest? Had he killed any of his pursuers? He thought he had, but couldn’t remember the spell he’d used, or even the feeling of the wand in his hand. He shouted in his dream, heard-felt Seamus drifting there as if tossed by a breeze. In one coherent flicker, he wondered at the confusion he must be pushing into his lover’s head, wondered if Seamus were not scrabbling for purchase in a miasma that was not really his. His skull throbbed dully.

A door clicked open, and suddenly Blaise knew Seamus was there; the presence of the one who shared his bond tore a long furrow through the fog. He rolled dazedly, felt the bed dip, and a warm heat insinuated itself along his back. Seamus’ arm came around him, a delicious weight, and Blaise’s mind spun free of the chaos. He found energy to search out Seamus’ fingers, lace his own through them. Sleep, deep and expansive, took him at last. The passage of time vanished.

His eyes opened again on their own. Blaise swam up into consciousness as though surfacing from a dark, dank lake. He blinked. Sunlight streamed in shafts through the dusty windows. The warmth of the room was almost overwhelming; he knew without thinking that to move would upset the balance, make him too hot. Blaise inhaled. Exhaled. Became aware of an indefinable ache. He touched his temple with one hand. No longer his head aching. Seamus’ arm was a limp, sleepy mass around his middle. He rubbed over his lover’s fingers. Seamus did not even twitch.

The heat of their two bodies drifted over him, and somewhere in his brain he felt Seamus reel and drift along with it. Blaise shut his eyes again and pressed a hand to his forehead. His stomach roiled. His throat tasted dry, acrid; he swallowed and leaned backward, longing for the haze of closeness, the slow loss of consciousness that sleep granted.

It was at the exact instant that he felt the damp cling of the sheets at his back that he realised he hadn’t heard Seamus’ gentle breaths. A long, uneasy rasp rattled in his ear and the indefinable burn blossomed heavily in the pit of his belly. Blaise struggled onto his elbows and looked at Seamus to find freckles standing out stark and livid against white… greying skin. Seamus’ eyelids were half closed; the dull sheen of blue irises was barely visible.

“Seamus.” The arm he now clutched lay leaden over his ribs. As he watched, Seamus’ body shivered into another slow rasp. Sallow pits hung under his partially closed eyes, and a glint of red dotted the corner of his mouth. Blaise looked down at the damp sheets.

Blood. The bedclothes were soaked rusty red with it.

He came fully awake in a wrenching grind that rolled through him from toes to fingertips. He lurched up, twisting a muscle in his abdomen painfully, but it hardly registered. “Seamus? Sea—”

There was a wound. In Seamus’ side, seeping a wide patch of crimson across a once-white undershirt. Blaise’s hand shot to Seamus’ hip, easing the sodden fabric away. Pressing it back into place, lest a tenuous clot be broken. Muscles shivered once under his fingers, and Seamus’ eyelids fluttered and drifted shut.

“Seamus!”

Blaise jerked the sheet from across his own body, scrunched it in his hand and pressed it to Seamus’ ribs, hiding the scarlet stain from view. Brown in places—how long had he been bleeding? How fucking long had he, Blaise, been asleep?

The ache intensified into a harsh burn in his own side, and Blaise moaned out the belated horror of it. He couldn’t breathe properly; his lips struggled to form words, and finally one arrived, laden with a hope that this time, this time, the occupant of the next room was actually there to hear it. “Draco!”

He lost track of how many times he cried that name into the room. He didn’t hear the door open, except that suddenly Draco Malfoy was at his side, leaning onto the bed and touching the clammy breadth of Seamus’ forehead. Blaise looked up, confused, unable to see anything aside from the shadows pocking Seamus’ face, the widening stains over his own hands. Draco’s hair was askew, eyes still blurry with sleep, and Blaise snatched his hand, yanking it to where the wound was.

“How long, Blaise? When did he… When did he arrive?”

Blaise shook his head, heard the rattle of Seamus’ breath, and pressed a hand to his own side, unable to see beyond the hot shard there. “Don’t know. Muddled—”

Draco froze, and then Blaise felt hands scrabbling over his own hips, pulling at his shirt. “Blaise. _Blaise,_ are you injured, too?”

“No! Fuck, Draco, no, it’s him, it’s… fucking binding… I can feel it…”

Draco’s hands left him, and Blaise felt Seamus’ body shift. Draco began to mutter. There was a ripping sound, fabric tearing, and a moan that was not Draco’s, nor his own. Blaise started upward, opened his eyes, only to fall back under a wave of dizziness. 

“Lacerating hex,” Draco said. His hands probed the wound, and more blood oozed forth. His wand waved once and his face twisted. “Not clotting. Fuck.”

Another wave of his wand, far more complicated. Draco slammed his hand down into the mattress and cursed. “Fucking—This is one of hers. Fucking Alecto!”

He yanked Blaise up by the collar of his shirt and shook him. “Blaise, what did you say about a… binding? Did she bind him?”

“No. Me… we. Draco—”

It might have been realisation dawning on Draco’s face, or new urgency. He let go. “Get your wand.”

Somehow Blaise fought free of the quilts and traversed the room to the bag he’d dropped by the door. He didn’t remember summoning Pomfrey, or the spells Draco recited for him to repeat, or the hurried explanations when the Healer finally hastened into the room. The smell of blood tickled Blaise’s nostrils as if he’d inhaled the liquid. The ache in his side swelled over him until it was all he could feel, and yet it did not fell him. He moved mechanically, seeing bright red and pale white, muted colours that only coalesced into recognisable objects an hour later, when Seamus was breathing more easily, Draco perched on the bed trailing his sparking wand back and forth in gentle strokes over the closing wound. Pomfrey spoke in agitated spurts. Words, “Alecto,” “spell,” and “when,” and Draco answered, but Blaise only heard Seamus’ gradually steadying dreams in his ears.

It wasn’t until six nights later, his lover catching his breath heavily in his arms for a different reason, that Blaise thought through his post-coital haze and understood that Seamus should have died. It should be a corpse in his arms. Somehow, Seamus had found his way back to him, and that same, fragile thread between them, the one that had brought him home, had kept him alive for hours when he should have perished. 

The tears that Seamus wiped from Blaise’s cheeks that night were helpless and unsatisfied by the reality of the man pressed against him. What should have been haunted Blaise’s thoughts like a wraith.


	17. Blaise

Dripping. Incessant dripping. The floor should have been slick with water, but Blaise’s feet alighted on dry stone. Some magical tremor kept the seeping walls at bay. He could smell the mustiness, and the odor wrapped around him as if he were in a catacomb. It was fitting; decay was rampant beneath the earthier smells, ever threatening.

The walls flickered like rippling water under the light cast by rows of fluttering torches. But they were not meant to banish darkness. It was not necessary for those who moved comfortably in the dark.

Blaise came to a turn and stopped. He pressed against the wet wall and listened. Nothing but the dripping. He peered around the corner. Another empty corridor, eerie in yellowish light. There were no pillars this time, just the sweating walls. He drew a breath and went down the hall at a silent run, feeling the vulnerability of each step as though it were a stutter in his heart. 

The next corridor was lined with thick pillars. They cast deep shadows, and Blaise moved more easily through them. He’d seen no one for hours. Hours of creeping, granted, moving far too slowly for his peace of mind. It was the all-too-probable consequences of carelessness that stopped Blaise from picking up the pace and kept the sweat running down his forehead at every turn in these endless hallways. If he didn’t know better, he would have counted this place deserted.

Except the torches still burned. 

The underground compound was enormous, a maze worthy of a minotaur. Blaise was glad he’d studied Pansy’s maps so diligently, listened so carefully to Theodore’s descriptions of the things he might come across, signs that indicated a well-worn corridor or patch of latent magical absence. 

He reminded himself that the Death Eaters had better things to do these days than wander aimlessly through the passages of their fortress. People to hunt. Saviours to catch. They wouldn’t even be looking for him, or anyone, down here, not unless he gave them a reason. His wand was in his hand, though he had no plans for using it just yet. Still, it felt more comfortable. Even after all these months, he was unused to leaving magic behind. 

He turned another corner with all due caution and found yet another corridor. The long ones were the worst, and he took them at a run when he could. He didn’t much fancy the idea of being caught in the middle if someone else ventured down the hallway from either end. There was nothing to hide behind this time, no pillars. He slowed as he approached the next bend, hearing nothing but his own quick breaths. A long hall, then a short one. Short. Long. Short. No pillars.

All at once, a figure turned the corner. Blaise stopped, his heart slamming up into his throat, but it was too late. The person froze, robes swishing around him. Blaise saw the wand in the man’s right hand, the voluminous black of velvet, and features he knew all too well.

“Blaise Zabini,” the man hissed. Blaise gritted his teeth. His adversary made no move to approach, but the low light was enough.

“Goyle.” It came on a breath. The hulking Death Eater’s face twisted into a snarl and he stepped forward. Blaise’s wand was pointed at his chest in a flat instant. 

“Don’t come any closer, Greg,” Blaise rasped. “I’ll kill you right here.”

Goyle’s lips curled into a smile. “Likewise.”

The spell was off Goyle’s wand before Blaise heard the words. He dove out of the way, rolling into the hallway he’d just left. A muttered curse sounded around the corner and Blaise pulled himself painfully to his feet. He couldn’t use his wand. It was only a fool’s chance, but if Gregory Goyle was as dim as he remembered him being—and Blaise was beginning to doubt this—then there was the possibility that the rest of the Death Eaters still had no idea there was anything amiss. If he used any magic they didn’t recognise, however, they’d be on him instantaneously. 

Blaise took off running, his trainers slapping the stone floor. Footsteps raced behind him, hard and heavy, but not slow enough, not slow enough… He had precious few seconds before Goyle remembered and called the rest of his cohorts, and Blaise had no delusions about what they would do to him if they caught him. Any lack of important strategic information would not be an issue; this late in the game, whatever they did would be done in sport, and it would be agonising at best.

Blaise slid around a corner and was faced with another short hallway leading to… a blank wall. For a long moment his eyes refused to believe what he was seeing. _Dead end._ Blaise looked around wildly but there were no passages, no alcoves to slip into. The torches flickered lazily, taunting him. His instincts told him there was probably a secret passage in the wall ahead, but there was _no time._ Blaise stood there, frozen, only to be wrenched out of it again by the sound of running feet. He flattened himself against the wall, ducking into a deep shadow caused by a column and the scantly placed torches, but he knew if Goyle came close enough, he would be seen. 

His pursuer wheeled around the corner and halted, wand jerking up warily. Dark eyes darted up and down the hallway. A few steps forward and Goyle would notice an oddly shaped shadow under the second torch on the right… But the Death Eater did not move. His wide face had gone flat. No trace of a smile left. Blaise quelled his heavy breathing and forced himself to concentrate. Goyle had been a fool, but he was obviously no longer the slouch Blaise remembered. This war had turned him into a thinker. A killer. Blaise couldn’t use magic; that left him with few options. If only Goyle would get closer, he could—but then he’d be seen—

“Where are you, Zabini?” 

Blaise stared. Goyle’s grating voice was singsong, echoing off the walls. It was startlingly unreal to hear this coming from the boy who used to infuriate Blaise with his sheer inability to move down a school hallway fast enough. The Death Eater stepped carefully down the corridor, peering into the hall’s recesses. “Come out.”

Blaise swallowed. His fingers twitched around his wand. Goyle spun away, pointing his own wand at a sliver of darkness to his left. This man… Blaise did not recognise him, and the possibility of what he might be capable of bit at him sharply.

“You’re caught,” Goyle intoned. “I’ll just call the others and then we can all hunt you down together.”

Step. Step. Every second that ticked by drew his old schoolmate closer to where he hid. 

“Just what are you doing here, anyway? Little blood traitor, within our walls…” The frown on Goyle’s face was calculating. Sweat slid down under Blaise’s collar. His legs were beginning to cramp. 

The huge former-Slytherin shrugged. “No matter. We have an excellent Legilimens here.”

Blaise shut his eyes. Snape. It had to be. Just the thought of seeing his old head of house again made him dizzy. Goyle moved closer; he was only a yard or two away now, but looking at the other side of the hallway. Any second, he would turn and—

“Do you have any plans we could put to good use?” Goyle murmured. “Or… maybe that lover of yours? Where is he this time of year?” 

Time seemed to stop. Blaise could not breathe. If they caught him they would torture him until they found out every detail. They would learn about the plan. About Ginny and Harry, about Draco. They would probe deeper and find the raw binding magic… and then they would use to it to find Seamus.

_Seamus._

Irrational anger erupted in Blaise’s chest, and almost immediately, a strange sense calm flooded through him. His options became clear in one sweeping rush. 

Goyle’s head turned back. Blaise could see his profile, orange in the firelight. He rose slowly to his feet, wand dropping from his hand. It clattered to the stones and Goyle whipped around, snarling. But Blaise was already on him, fist slamming into his chin. Goyle staggered, raised his wand, but Blaise wrapped an arm around his thick neck and squeezed. Goyle gasped for air. His huge fist belted Blaise in the gut, in the side, in the lower back. Blaise nearly fell as agony bloomed inside from the third punch, but there was no time to reconsider. He jerked Goyle’s head up by the hair and rammed it into the wall, hard. Twice.

Gregory Goyle dropped like a sack of stones. 

Blaise stood in the flickering hallway, stunned by the sudden silence. Breathing was a struggle. His lower back and left side were a mass of pain. He tried to bend over, to get his wand, but the fire in his torso doubled. Blaise forced himself into movement, kneeling gingerly over the man he’d just been fighting. His fingers trembled against Goyle’s throat, but he couldn’t feel anything past the beat of his own blood in his ears. He had no idea if Goyle was still alive. 

Shivering, Blaise lowered himself against the wall. The stones felt deliciously icy over the sharp heat in his side. He lifted his shirt as high as he could without crying out and pressed as much of the area as possible against the granite. Goyle might have ruptured something, cracked a rib. There was no way to know.

He felt like vomiting.

Salazar. Was this what they had come to? He raised one hand before swimming eyes, trying to ground himself in the familiarity of it. _No, you incredible fool, this is where you’ve been for the last three years._ All of them, reduced to grappling in the dark, wounding—even killing—with their bare hands. Blaise swallowed against the nausea, and his side ached like dull fire, a reminder that some nightmares were inescapable. He wondered who else might be down in this winding, rotting pit, who else he might recognise today.

He knew he should check to see if Goyle was still alive, but he couldn’t bring himself to find out. If Goyle wasn’t alive, Blaise would know he’d killed him. And if he was… In all good sense, there was no way Blaise could leave Goyle alive if he knew. Every logical instinct inside him was ordering against it. He would have to kill him there in the hallway, without magic. While Goyle was unconscious.

Blaise didn’t check. 

The corridors wound like snakes, switching back and forth, opening into vast rooms and then closing again into the stagnant quiet of close walls. Blaise heard nothing as he limped through the shadows. Goyle _had_ been the fool of his youth, in the end. He’d alerted no one. Blaise could see the layout of the underground fortress in his mind like lines of cool starlight: on the other side of that wall, a room. Down that corridor, a switchback leading to another dead end. Twice he slid behind a pillar and watched robed figures stride past and on out of sight. There was no hustle, none of the frenzy described by Pansy during her days within these walls. Blaise dared to hope—silently because anything else courted disaster—that Voldemort was absent.

When he recognised the older, darker stone of the inner sanctum, Blaise at last called to mind the two sentences he’d learned over and over, and began to hiss. The sound sliced the stillness like a sibilant blade. Blaise allowed himself one final stretch of silence, cool and comforting, before hissing again.

Nothing.

But now that the real waiting had begun, his former discomfort could not compare. Until now, there had always been that last barrier. Now there was nothing in front of him but the conclusion, however it might play out. He had to stop, to close his eyes and fight dizziness.

When he opened them again, he hissed a third time, and it was easier.

And what if this snake wasn’t here at all? Nagini. Potter had told Blaise her name. The snake often went where Voldemort went, or so the Order’s information said. Pansy had confirmed more than once that the serpent remained in the compound often enough when her master had departed, but it was hit or miss. The whim of any given day. And if Voldemort himself were here, then Blaise had already called something much larger and darker down upon his own head.

But they were out of options. He’d already come this far, further than most.

He picked up his pace, hissing softly as he went and listening as the sound echoed down the empty corridors. Several times he fooled himself into thinking that the hisses that came back to him were those of a more tangible serpent. Each twist and turn led to another, to shadows and hallways just like the rest, and Blaise began to panic. Just slivers of it, brimming over to drip through him, but there just the same.

Had he lost his way somehow? He paused in the middle of a nondescript hallway, unable to go forward, wondering if he should go back and look again. If she came across him in a corridor, there was little he could do to protect himself. There was a room here somewhere, with solid walls and one entrance. One exit. Sealable, but the timing had to be perfect.

No. He couldn’t afford to second-guess himself. Blaise inhaled deeply. It was here; he’d studied these corridors for far too long to be wrong. The Death Eaters couldn’t magically reorient a structure as old as this one.

Blaise moved forward with strides that were more certain than he’d expected. He had to be… circling it. Right outside the chamber. A right… another right. And there, in the wall just up the corridor, a large wooden door sat into the stone wall, a huge iron ring hanging where a knob would have been.

Blaise confirmed the still-empty hallway over his shoulder and hunkered down next to the closed door. No visible signs of spellwork. He pulled out his wand and gripped it. If the hissing hadn’t called her, then this would. With all the inherent magic in this section, the Death Eaters might not feel such a tiny spell, but a snake would sense the change in pressure, no matter how slight.

He whispered the charm and waved his wand quickly at the door. Nothing; no spells. And why should there be? There was nothing important kept in the room, according to the Order’s intelligence. Still, he needn’t get this far only to be blasted apart by a hex that a fifth year could have put down.

The door was clean. Blaise’s breath clotted in his lungs as he raised his hand and laid his palm against the uneven wooden surface. Petrified with age and endless moisture, the door was dark and solid. No embedded curse shot through Blaise’s body. It was just a door.

The ring was freezing to the touch. Blaise wrapped his fingers around it and pulled. The door gave a hard scrape over the floor, then creaked toward him. Beyond was a dark void. His mouth tasted chalky. Suddenly both the spaces in front and behind felt too ominous, too full of eyes. He jerked around, peering down the short hall. Only torchlight, in a regular interval of guttering. There was no one there.

There was nothing else to wait for. At any minute, the snake could—Blaise inched inside the black room, hugging the wall. The chamber felt huge in the darkness, an impossible abyss gaping at his feet. Blaise clenched his teeth, shut his eyes—it made no difference—and forced himself to keep moving. Slow steps, one and then another, a strange sideways shuffle toward… He had no idea what. The wall’s plane changed against his back as he went, an obtuse angle to another identical stretch of wall. The room was circular, then, or at least meant to appear so. The faint light streaming through the open doorway only made the rest of the room darker. Moving away from that pale shaft felt ludicrous. His palms began to sweat as the light got further and further from him.

No, he… Gods. His breath came faster. Harder. He was so stupid, he was in danger, there was something _in this room._ Blaise stumbled over his own feet and let out a sound. Clutched at the wall. Moved faster, more frenziedly, in the wrong direction. He should go back, it was just there in the darkness waiting for him to take that last step away from the light, and then it would—

Something smacked into his forehead and Blaise jerked back, throwing up a hand. His fingers hit metal, just at the level of his ear. He grabbed it, barely stilling his own flight. Cold bands of metal wrapped round and round each other to form a cup of some kind. Just like the wall sconces in the halls. Blaise gave up on the wall itself and scrabbled at the sconce, feeling his way over rusted metal with shaking hands. Long, smooth… the handle of a torch. Blaise yanked at it but it held fast. He pulled again, breath hissing between his teeth, and finally the torch broke free with a loud crack. He spun around and ran with all his might for the door, unable to stop himself. Fell out into the still-empty hallway.

Huddled there on the floor catching his breath, the broken torch in hand.

Stupid, this was so _stupid,_ he should get out of there while he still could, get back to the surface and run and run and… and… Blaise pressed a hand over his eyes. Run to what? To the war? The war that wouldn’t be won if the snake was still alive somewhere, according to Potter. Almighty gods, what did a snake have to do with anything? “Just a fucking Familiar,” Blaise whispered. His own voice sounded tiny and lost in the dank hallway. He swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat.

He was behaving like a child. He was the only one left who could have got in here besides Draco himself, now that Theodore was dead, and they would have caught Draco anyway, Blaise knew it as well as he knew anything. The Death Eaters knew Draco’s magic. They weren’t as familiar with Blaise’s. 

“Probably the only reason you’re still alive,” he said to himself. The words broke into a strangled laugh.

Alright then. He had the torch already. He needn’t act like such a bloody baby. It was only a room, and he wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore, and… and he had something to return to when he got out of this. Not if, when. He’d stopped associating Seamus with any sort of ‘if’ long ago.

Blaise pulled himself to his feet, cursing his own foolishness. Lying there in the hallway where any Death Eater worth his or her salt could find him… He pushed off the wall on wobbly legs and made for the nearest of the lit sconces. His torch was damp with disuse and took a few tries to light, but finally it flared. Blaise licked his lips and hissed again. A woefully soft sound. A frightened sound. 

He was frightened.

Keeping his eyes on the hallway before him, Blaise backed into the room.

The torch threw the walls into sharp, golden relief. Blaise turned in place, forgetting his fear while he summed up the new space. Circular, definitely. A many-sided polygon, with a wide floor that descended toward the centre by way of shallow steps. Like an amphitheatre. The ceiling was relatively low compared to the hallways. If he reached up, he might touch it. There were other unlit torches along the walls, and he set off around the room, lighting them as he went. 

Yes, this was the chamber he’d been seeking. Relief washed over him, settling his nerves. It would be the ideal place to call the snake. Once he had the serpent inside with him, he could close the door, throw a warding spell up, and then it wouldn’t matter if the Death Eaters felt it; they would never get in before he was done, as long as he was efficient.

He was counting on them feeling the spell. If they knew where he was, they _might_ just dismantle the anti-Apparition wards around the entire base in an attempt to get into the room with him. 

It was a big might. But Blaise had worked with less just by sneaking into the damn place.

He made his way quickly back to the doorway and peered out, adjusting the aperture so that the door was only open about a foot. He would have to close it with a spell; it wouldn’t do to get too close to the snake. Blaise stuck his head out and hissed again, the sounds made bolder by his growing control over the situation. Control… Not nearly. But he could pretend. He left the doorway and circled the room again, running his hand over the wall. It would take precision; he’d only get one shot at this once the snake arrived.

“Occludoveloxis,” he muttered to himself. “Then Munio Foris on the door. Impervius. Fractus Anappareo, so they can’t Apparate in. Occludoveloxis. Munio Foris. Impervius. Fractus Anappareo. Occludoveloxis. Munio Foris...”

On his way past the door, he hissed again. Kept walking. Once he lost count of how many times he’d circled, Blaise sat down against the wall out of the door’s direct line of sight, and waited. Except for his occasional hissing, the room was as silent as a tomb. There was a strange echo from the hallway outside, as though the vastness of the chambers themselves were whispering. Blaise rested his head against the wall, uncertain of how long he’d been sitting. Hissing.

Until a new sound edged into his awareness. The dry, slow rasp of something sliding over the floor.

Blaise got to his feet with some difficulty, gripping his wand. He shook out his legs one at a time, and the pain of standing again lanced up his muscles in little tingles. Standing with one hand flat against the wall, he held his breath and listened with all his might.

It echoed down the hallway, filtering into the large room. It sounded very close. Blaise knew it was a trick of his ears and of the echoes. Far away still, perhaps several turns down the dim corridors. It was nothing like the fall of footsteps.

Blaise licked his lips. He felt quite outside of himself, watching as another person who looked just like him waited for what was approaching. It wasn’t his tongue that slid around the slithery words one more time and spoke them aloud into the room. 

The sound outside grew closer.

Had to be his quarry. Blaise worked at breathing, at readying himself. He moved along the wall, as close to the door as he dared. No more waiting—there was nothing left to wait _for._

She was approaching slowly, moving across the ground in smooth sweeps. Must have been closer than he’d thought. He doubted he would have heard her otherwise. She sounded large, and though Potter had described her in detail, Blaise wasn’t sure what he would see when she entered the room. He wiped his palms against his pullover and tucked his wand hand out of sight behind his leg.

The sound stopped right outside the door. Cautious, if such a snake cared about caution. Blaise was certain this one did. The new silence beat into his ears. For the first time he wondered how long he would have before the Death Eaters came screaming down around the sealed room. Of course, that meant he had to seal it first.

He saw a tongue, thin and flickering like pink fairy-light. It whipped in and back out to the safety of the hallway. Surely she could smell him. Blaise let one word of Parseltongue slip from his lips, barely audible, but the snake’s tongue flicked out again and lingered. Her nose edged into view, emerald green with black markings. She tasted the air, and Blaise felt the first ripples of fear. She had to come into the room. Had to be most of the way in. The idea of slamming the door shut upon her body as she entered came to him, but he wasn’t sure if he could seal it with her half in, half out, and then her head was sliding into view, much larger than any snake’s he’d ever seen, eyes too bright, too keen for a simple reptile. There was acute consciousness in their depths, thought, the weight of options. It was utterly cold, that consciousness, bleak and icy as snow, and far more calculating than that of half the humans Blaise had come up against. Snakes thought, of course, but _this_ snake… planned. Understood. Assessed. It would take her mere seconds to figure out that he wasn’t supposed to be here, if her sense of smell had not told her so already.

She slid halfway into the room, her body large and glossy, black and deep green and pebbled. Her eyes were yellow, and they found him at once. The rest of her tail whipped into the room to coil behind her, and Blaise saw that he had lucked out simply by virtue of nature; she couldn’t spring to her own defence with half of herself still out in the hallway. So she’d gathered her entire body together.

In the split second that her eyes caught him, glittering into awareness, Blaise snapped his wand up. “Occludoveloxis!”

The door slammed shut with a resounding bang, and the snake jerked. But the next words were already off Blaise’s tongue. “Munio Foris! Impervius!”

The hiss that erupted from her mouth was one of anger. Her eyes narrowed into slits. Blaise lifted his wand a final time, sweeping the entire room with its point. He spoke clearly, never taking his eyes off of the massive serpent. “Fractus Anappareo.”

His own magic, so long unused, fogged the room in a murky flood. Blaise blinked, feeling the comforting shift and sway of energy against his body. The Death Eaters would have to be absolute idiots not to have sensed that. But it was done: the room was sealed with the snake inside.

She made no move, only stared at him from across the sunken floor. Blaise backed away from her slowly, his wand trained upon her tapered head. He had a few minutes at most. Anti-Apparition wards of such a large scope took time to dismantle, and until they managed it, the Death Eaters would have to use their feet instead. And then however long it took them to break through his spells. If he hadn’t dealt with her by then…

She was so long. She could easily have stretched halfway to him, nose to tail. Her middle was thick and powerful, clenching muscles, squeezing muscles. Blaise swallowed and tightened his grip on his wand.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

The spell hit her with a nasty shiver and a burst of white light. Her eyes flared dull red. Her head swayed back and forth on her neck, and her hisses grew lengthier and more deadly.

The fear shot fully through Blaise’s limbs. Magic resistant. Gods. One of Voldemort’s precautions, perhaps, or maybe she wasn’t just a snake. What on earth was he going to do? He’d counted on magic. Shielding against the Death Eaters, and spells to finish her off. Now Blaise’s head felt hot. There was a ringing in his ears.

The serpent hissed at him again, a guttural sound. She began to slide across the floor, staying near the wall, and Blaise matched her, keeping the middle of the room between them.

He’d have to get close to her. Another stronger spell might have a better effect. He picked one at random and spun it out toward her, a wordless incantation meant to sting across the flesh, to freeze muscle and skin and bone. The spell cocooned her head, then slipped around her body like a… well, a snake. She spat, tucking herself close in. An instant later, the magic sprang free of her scales as if sloughed, and she darted forward in a horrifying flash, mouth open to bare glistening fangs, eyes snapping furiously.

Blaise lunged out of reach.

The snake reared her head up and let forth a stream of hissing as caustic as acid. Blaise was struck by the idea that she was cursing at him in Parseltongue. It was so ludicrous that he nearly laughed.

He couldn’t rely on his wand. A spell wouldn’t stop her for nearly long enough. The best he could hope for was to continually startle her, and he hadn’t time for that. There was no way to know what would happen if he tried the Killing Curse. It might hit home. It might just as easily rebound and hit him instead. 

Her eyes glowed a fierce crimson. She slithered toward him in calculating strokes, growing ever nearer. Blaise’s throat closed. At that very moment, the room’s air danced before his eyes, and he felt a vibrant tremor deep in his chest.

The Death Eaters had found the source of the magical disturbance at last. 

Blaise’s heart hammered in his temples. One word screamed into his head: _closer._ He was running out of time. If he could just get within range—

Blaise shot the petrifying spell again and rushed forward. The snake snapped her head out like lightning and Blaise hit the ground, rolling out of the way. His shoulder crunched hard against the stone floor and he forced himself to his feet, hearing her coming. He spun, not thinking about it, just knowing instinctively. Her head was right there, glossy and grotesque. He hit it merely by chance, snapping her head away, and seized at the thick abdomen with both hands. 

_Not high enough,_ his brain said dully, and then orange fire erupted in his arm, acidic and _burning_ through him, eating up his muscles. Blaise cried out and let go, reaching for the hurt instead, the horror. He found his shirt ripped, his arm bleeding, and her head rearing for another strike. Blaise threw himself back with all his strength and just barely avoided the flashing teeth. She closed in, fangs bared. Blaise jabbed out with his wand and the snake actually screeched, a high-pitched sound that caromed through his ears. She flailed with her whole body, tail lashing madly over the floor, catching him across the legs. She jerked herself free of the wand point embedded into her eye.

An ominous thudding sizzled through the room. Blaise got to his feet and staggered against the wall, gasping at the fire climbing its way up his arm. Poison. She’d bitten him. He’d known, of course, but… Salazar…

The snake lunged.

Blaise fell to the side, kicking out and making contact with something. He heard her hiss; something clamped around his ankle with incredible force, and then, more fire. Blaise’s mind toppled. He snapped his other leg around, catching her square in the jaw. There was a terrible popping noise, as of small bones. The serpent rolled along the floor, her body jerking uncontrollably. 

_Now, do it now!_ His entire body was aflame, his leg and arm an utter inferno, his shoulder numb with the pain. Somewhere in there, he’d struck his ribs. The snake thrashed, smacking against him in sinuous thumps that went straight into his bones. Blaise rolled over and found a writhing, wrenching mass beneath him. He wrapped both arms around it, hugging it close. Her tail swept around his waist faster than he could blink and tightened the air from his lungs.

But he had her head, hands quaking just beneath her jaw. 

Poison dripped down her fangs and over his fingers, needling into his flesh. Blaise howled and slammed her head down with a force born of desperation. She hissed at him, coiling more tightly. Blaise saw black spots. He struck at her, digging fingers into her good eye, but still she tightened her death grip upon him. Her mutilated eye socket streamed blackish blood, and it puddled on the floor.

Blaise’s mind was a haze. But the eye… He let go with one hand without thinking and reached, scrabbled across the ground, through warm blood. Couldn’t breathe. His fingers were losing feeling, poison coursing through them, and finally, the solid length of his wand surfaced beneath them. He snatched it up, forced his hand to close around it, and stabbed downward.

The snake let out a chilling, helpless scream. Her hold wrenched so tight Blaise nearly vomited. He pressed her head to the floor and jabbed the wand into her throat over and over and over. Her body began to shake madly, hissing in jolts and bursts. He stabbed until he lost his grip on the wand and it fell from his hand, clattering to the stones. 

As though a breath of fresh air had washed into the room, the snake’s body loosened and fell away.

The sudden stillness was nauseating. Blaise remained there, half crouched, muscles frozen. Steel pins, holding his body in this position, away from the aches, the blinding pain lurking just over the horizon. Gore dripped from his fingertips and fell in tiny splats to the stones. The snake’s body still twitched minutely, muscles remembering their earlier movement. 

His fingers burned. Blaise looked down, jerking his head in the tiniest of increments. He could barely see his skin through the dark blood. He blinked, drew a breath, and the agony he’d been waiting for erupted all along his backbone, through his left side, up his arm, down one leg. His neck was a mass of the hottest fire he had ever felt. Blaise’s eyes blurred. He fell heavily, clutching at his clothing, wiping his hands sluggishly against his torn shirt. 

He thought, vaguely, that he must be twitching like the snake.

The clang of a door somewhere, horribly sharp to his ears, brought him half off the floor before he could think about the consequences of the movement. His left shoulder felt seared, the arm below it was quickly going numb. He fumbled for his wand with shaking fingers. The power of a still-active spell zinged into his fingertips and for a long, empty moment, Blaise couldn’t remember what he’d done.

The door clanged again and it hit him like a slap to the face. Warding spell. Blaise struggled to his feet, clutching his numb arm to his chest in an effort to prove it was actually there. The ward was still up, but fading; he didn’t need to feel the magic to tell him that. And it wasn’t keeping them from moving on foot, only Apparating.

Their own Apparition shields must have come down by now.

Blaise forced himself into motion and staggered for the door. There was blood in his mouth, much more than a mere cut lip would leave. The flavour was different, richer. He spat over his shoulder and looked away before it hit the floor. And right in front of him—a flash of blue light—the door slammed open, letting a tall robed figure into the room.

Blaise dragged to a halt.

The Death Eater paused in the entranceway, scanning the chamber with sweeps of her head. Her mouth was open; it was all he could see beneath her dark cowl. But her gaze alighted on him and her wand shot up, steady and accusing. She stepped forward… and stopped.

Her body had gone rigid, the slightest quiver to her shoulders. Blaise inhaled. The woman looked up, light spilling across a white face, and Blaise felt his stomach roll with recognition.

Millicent Bulstrode’s eyes went wide. Her wand dropped an inch. “Blaise?” she whispered.

Blaise blinked at her through the pain, breathing hard. “Millie.”

Millicent’s eyes moved past him and fixed on the dead serpent. She whipped her gaze back to him. Disbelief cluttered her eyes. “What have you done?”

He didn’t answer. She stepped nearer. His body reacted automatically and hitched him backward, keeping the distance between them. His leg throbbed, making his head pound. 

“Blaise, wait. I—” She stuttered into silence, then raised her hands, placating. Blaise took as deep a breath as his broken ribs would allow and shook his head at her.

“Millicent.” Breathe. “What are you doing?”

She looked back at him, chin quivering, and her wand inched up again. It dropped just as quickly. _“You_ put the wards up?”

He didn’t bother answering. His chest was seizing. He could feel the snake’s poison working through his blood, clutching at each muscle, devouring nerves. He didn’t know the end result, but he could guess. The anti-Apparition ward was going to drop at any instant and… he refused to look past that moment. 

“Millie. Just… do it,” he whispered at last.

“Blaise—”

“Millicent, you’re not on my side—” A fit of coughing shook him and he nearly fell. A hand caught and steadied him, and when he looked up, he found himself staring into chocolate brown eyes, wide with fear.

“Blaise, get out of here.”

He shook his head, dumbfounded. She glanced at her wand, and then turned to him, eyes hard, jaw set. “I can’t let you get away with this. But I won’t be the one to—Blaise—” She took a shuddering breath and stepped away from him. Raised her wand.

“I can give you five minutes,” she whispered.

Blaise stared at her. Her body was red-rimmed to his agonised eyes. He pressed a hand to his right side, felt his wand slip through fingers newly slicked. His blood this time? Most likely. It didn’t matter from where, he could very well be bleeding out at that moment. Millicent’s eyes glimmered. She flicked her wand hand, biting her lip and looking again like the child he had first seen eight years ago in Hogwarts’ Great Hall. “Go.”

Blaise allowed himself a last, pain-dulled look, and then turned, drawing on every reserve he had. Just drop the ward, and then Apparition was not out of the question… if he could only _think…_

The remains of the door blasted apart in a rain of wood and iron. Millicent spun around. Already her face was masking itself, fingers tightening around her wand. But her fear was apparent. A dark figure shoved through the splintered doorway into the room. Blaise had an impression of glittering eyes fixating on him before Millicent stepped forward.

 _“You,”_ rasped an icy voice from the depths of the hood over the newcomer’s face. Millicent’s shoulders stiffened. 

“I should have known, you stupid girl,” the voice hissed. “Get out of the way.” 

“No, wait.” Millicent stepped between them. “We can use him, we don’t have to kill him! Just—” 

There was a flash of green light and Blaise watched dully as Millicent toppled over backward. Her head hit the floor with a sharp crack. Blaise’s brain tried to shut down on him, but the recognition of the new Death Eater standing before him jolted him into action that his body couldn’t handle. Bellatrix Lestrange’s face was pale as a banshee’s, her lips nearly black in the light as they formed the words to a spell. Blaise dove and rolled, nearly blacking out at the horrendous slash that carved his innards. He couldn’t tell if her spell had been successful or if the pain was from a previous injury. Her second spell connected, however, hitting him full in the chest and sending searing heat through his lungs. An instant later it didn’t matter: what could only be Cruciatus turned his mind to jelly. Only the sinister blending of the spell’s magic kept him from passing out. He jerked, screaming inside, outside, everywhere, oh gods, he hadn’t thought it possible to feel this much pain, scorching ripping tearing Seamus Seamus Seamus _SEAMUS!!!_

He barely knew it had stopped until he saw Lestrange’s face looming out of the gloom. She spat on him. 

“Blood traitor.”

Blaise stared up at her, unable to breathe, unable to think. Going to kill him she was going to kill him she was going to—

“S…”

The woman’s stringy black hair drifted around her face as she leaned in. “What was that?” she said in the same soft voice. It was almost motherly, and it was grotesque.

“Snake.”

Her face clouded in confusion. Then her eyes widened and she looked up, focusing behind him. Her mouth dropped open. “Nagini?” she whispered.

How Blaise did it, he would never know. He wrapped a hand around her ankle and yanked as hard as he could. She toppled over with a shout of surprise. Blaise pushed himself to his feet and promptly fell down again. Something in his stomach was all wrong, he could feel it. He could hear Bellatrix scrabbling behind him, screeching. Blaise spun on his knees and used his wand. 

“Vastare!” he rasped.

Bellatrix’s screaming reached a new pitch as the spell hit her, but the last ward he had erected had fallen at last, he could feel the emptiness, and he could only think about the ticking seconds. 

_Get out. They’re coming._

Cracks sounded around him, and shouts. Blaise concentrated with all his might on one thought, one coherent image. _A tree._

There was a vicious hiss as a spell hummed past him.

_Waving grass._

Lestrange was shrieking.

_Broken oak door._

Something hot and sizzling slammed into his side. 

_Cathedral._

Blaise Apparated.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Please Don't Leave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/683937) by [Naadi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naadi/pseuds/Naadi)




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